


and be kind

by cheerynoir, sirfeit



Series: go home, or make a home [8]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Tattoos, Torture, spies! intrigue! adventure!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:01:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 29,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11276757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheerynoir/pseuds/cheerynoir, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirfeit/pseuds/sirfeit
Summary: “Like, I just don’t know. He came back to Arkadia and he was loyal to Pike and he was loyal to me, but I didn’t really trust him until I kind of — slipped into it, and then he killed Pike and took me at gunpoint to Polis and I was exiled for six months and they were the best six months of my life, and when I came back we were at the dropship again and he was doing some sort of other mission, and then we were in the cave and there was ALIE and he kissed me, and afterward in that trading post, we had sex and then he took my gun and killed Jaha and I gave him that shell necklace and less than a week later he was gone. Took off with the Luna girl from the caves. It’s like. I just don’t know anymore.”---I am Mofi kom Oshokru, and I have come here to seek refuge. I mean no harm, I’m just hungryThis Story Will Have A Happy Ending





	1. let go, or be dragged

**Author's Note:**

> hey kids! glad you're back for Book Four. please prepare for the following:  
> -a happy ending  
> -spies! intrigue! undercover missions!  
> -braven!  
> -a whole host of original characters  
> -original settings! trigedesleng! grounder culture!  
> -everything you've come to expect from a sirfeit fanfiction  
> -complete disregard for season 4 of the 100  
> -murphy trying new foods in between murdering people!

“Like, I just don’t know. He came back to Arkadia and he was loyal to Pike and he was loyal to me, but I didn’t really trust him until I kind of — slipped into it, and then he killed Pike and took me at gunpoint to Polis and I was exiled for six months and they were the best six months of my life, and when I came back we were at the dropship again and he was doing some sort of other mission, and then we were in the cave and there was ALIE and he kissed me, and afterward in that trading post, we had sex and then he took my gun and killed Jaha and I gave him that shell necklace and less than a week later he was gone. Took off with the Luna girl from the caves. It’s like. I just don’t know anymore.”

Raven looks down at him, lips pressed into a thin line. “I asked you if you wanted to fuck around,” she says. “I didn’t ask for your sob story. Are you gonna cry, or are you gonna fuck me? You’ve got thirty seconds, Blake.”

He opts for the crying. Raven rubs his back, but she sighs while doing it.

—

“It’s mid-summer,” says the Commander, in the doorway of the barracks. Prosper is doing chin-ups, but he sets it aside and gives the Commander his full attention, as is expected.

“It’s been a nice summer so far,” he says neutrally.

“Mofi,” she clarifies, getting to the point. “He was allowed until the end of spring to recover outside of Polis, but he has not returned. Please gather a team you work well with, and recover him."

“Kom Skaikru?” he asks, to be sure. “He’s not worth it. You should choose a new lukotwar, or let Ryfe continue. She’s bloodthirsty enough.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” says the Commander sharply.

“I’m sorry,” says Prosper, insincere. “But I know him better than you do.”

“Prosper,” says the Commander. “You are out of line.”

He bows his head. “I’ll assemble a team. When do we need to leave by?”

“As soon as you can.”

“As you wish, Commander,” he says, and gets to work.

—

Ruth is braiding the Commander’s hair that morning when the Commander says: “Perhaps you should go home to your mother when Prosper returns.”

Ruth says nothing, but the Commander has learned her silences, and continues.

“Maybe see the forest. Wildekru makes trees of their dead, does it not? You could go and see how your brothers are doing.”

Ruth is silent for long enough that she lets go of the Commander’s hair, and Lexa turns around to face her. “I dreamt of Anya,” she says, head bowed. “And of Costia, and of my six children, and the hundreds upon hundreds of dead that will come after them. Their bodies are burned. They are gone. But you can — you can still talk to yours.”

Ruth lets her eyes meet Lexa’s. “The dead are never gone,” she says, gentle. “As long as they are remembered. But — the trees seem to listen.”

“Take me with you,” says Lexa, sudden, too quiet. Before Ruth can respond, she talks over herself, backtracking. “You don’t have to. I just, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Ruth studies her Commander for a long moment, and finally, lowers her gaze. There’s respect there, but — empathy, too, perhaps. “You are Commander,” she says. _Beholden to no one._ “Wildekru is not in the habit of turning people away, if they are in need."

Lexa shakes her head, rueful. “No,” she says again. “I’m sorry. Go. Bring me back one of your mother’s jams. Stay strong.”

Ruth watches her again for a very long moment. Lets the invitation — the acceptance — hang heavy and thick. “Let go, Commander,” she advises, touching her Commander’s hand. “Or be dragged.”

Lexa nods, but looks away, to the window, to the world below. Ruth leaves her to it.

—

They aren’t bothering to hide their tracks or disguise their appearances: the folly of a thief. Mofi is travelling with a girl, a freikdreina, with a damaged hand. They sleep in caves and hunt by day; both people and their objects and animals. Prosper watches closely; Mofi never kills, whether required to or not. The freikdreina does it for him. His hands shake.

Prosper’s lip curls. He is broken. The last year has not been kind to him. He is not worth what resources the Commander is pouring into him and what she will continue to pour into him. She is regaled for being the People’s Commander, for uniting the clans for a Coalition, but she extends herself too far on things she should give up on. But it is not his place to say. It is his place to obey.

There are certain traits a scout will look for in a lukotwar before recruiting them, always with the ankle tattoo and their first kill. Their relentlessness, the capacity to take and to hold damage. That they already don’t get along with their clan, but are still loyal enough to it. Polis had never had its own lukotwar, and Prosper thinks that if they were going to choose one, they should have been from Wildekru, not Skai. But: Lexa’s attachment to the Skaikru leader was well-known, so their lukotwar would be Skai so they could repair and repay what damage they had wrought upon the Coalition already. Whatever. Prosper’s not a diplomat. And he’s glad for it, too.

Mofi does not go quietly. His freikdreina is who takes out the majority of his team, and he gives his knife smile when he holds a blade to her throat and watches the fight bleed out of him. They take her knives, pack up Mofi’s belongings and sling them in the back of the cart.

She touches Mofi’s face and says: “ _Survive. Please._ ” Like it is a prayer.

It is a good prayer. He will need it. His eyes shutter closed, and he screams all the way into the cart, as they chain his limbs down, as they fasten a blindfold around his eyes.

The freikdreina follows them for eighteen miles out of the forest, until he stops the cart and approaches her with his blade drawn. “Look,” he says. “I don’t want to have to kill you. If I do, I will hang your head in the cart where he is chained and he will have to smell your blood all the way back to Polis.” She snarls at him, lunges. He deflects easily. He is the only warrior Oshokru has ever raised. Of course he can fend off a flawed mutant. “You know where we are going: back to Polis. Stay hidden for six more days, and then do your wailing and your waiting there. There is no law against that.”

She stops following them afterwards.

Later, one of his team, Deshawna, emerges from the belly of the cart, bread and water still in her hands. “Tried to talk to me,” she reports. “I wasn’t about that.”

Prosper scowls, and dips into the darkness of it.

Mofi is chained, all four limbs attached to an iron staple in the middle of the floor. He can’t move very far, and if he could, there is nothing near to him to grab. The blindfold is slipping off: a combination of sweat and tears and concentrated effort. Prosper kneels and removes it altogether.

Mofi spits at him. Prosper is unbothered. “Their loyalty is more powerful than your threats or pleas, lukotwar,” he says.

“You know my fucking name,” snarls Mofi.

“Sure,” agrees Prosper. “But it’s hardly yours anymore, is it?”

Mofi yanks at the chains binding him to the floor. “We always gonna come back to this?” Then, voice splintering: “ _Prop_?” The affectionate name that Bellamy always gives him.

Harsh. Not unexpected. Prosper fixes the blindfold back on him — Mofi turns his head away but does not scream this time — and leaves him to it.

—

There is torture back in Polis, but one useful thing that Ryfe taught him was how to endure, so he steps away from his body for a little while and pretends that he isn’t himself. When he wakes up he is back in his bedroom on the top floor, and it’s like Emori never came for him and it was all just a — dream.

One ankle is cuffed to the the bed, on that long chain. Ryfe is sitting beside his bed. “Go away,” he says, fuzzy, annoyed. His head feels stuffed with cotton. He is very thirsty.

“Head up,” says Ryfe. “Drink this.”

Murphy tries to raise himself into a sitting position, mostly succeeds. Ryfe hands him a cup full of some liquid. He’s desperate enough to drink it. It’s not water.

He’s unconscious again in minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> usual notes apply: talk to me on tumblr @icetastrophe or alternatively on twitter @geographconcept . thank you for reading! i always enjoy your comments and kudos - they're what keep me writing. honestly.
> 
> 1 zillion billion million thanks to cheerynoir


	2. hold steady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for suicidal thoughts, depression, bellamy’s face

He does not wake up alone and coherent for a long time, but when he fights through the haze at last, the first thing he does is sit up and take stock of his injuries. Bruises, mostly, and aches, but nothing is bleeding, and nothing is broken. He is still chained to the bed; he gets up and explores the limits of it. Not far enough to get to the door or the window. There’s a pot underneath his bed for when he has to piss. Great.

He spends his time sitting at the end of the bed and worrying at the cuff around his ankle. Wear away the skin long enough, and maybe it’ll eventually come off. It scrapes painfully at his heel, but he keeps doing it. Moss lets himself in as the grey light outside his window begins to fade, lights the candles around the room. Says something in Trigedasleng. Murphy just stares.

Moss unwraps something from a bundle he was keeping on his person. Two apple pastries, flaky crust, still warm. Moss indicates, and Murphy eats for the first time he can remember since the cart. “Thank you,” he says to Moss, spraying crumbs all over him. Moss chatters at him excitedly. He swallows the rest of the pastry without tasting it.

Moss sits with him a while longer, and it — It’s lonely in a way he didn’t expect it to be, because he doesn’t catch anything of what Moss is saying, except that Moss wants to be comforting, and reassuring, and helpful. Well. Moss was taken from his home and trained to kill people too, just in a different way. He’s the only one who really knows what it’s like.

Murphy would learn Trig for Moss. He kind of half-wishes someone besides Ryfe had the patience to try and teach him. He lays down, listening to Moss rattle on. Pulls the covers over his head. Drifts away, and it’s. It’s alright.

—

He is let off the chain for training with Ryfe, for laps around the barracks. Ryfe talks to him in Trig too, gives him tips and advice that he doesn’t understand. He is hungry all the time and he never gets enough food, but he’s too tired to plot anything like escape, just tugging at the cuff until there’s a red ring of skin, hurts. And Ryfe, by his bedside every night, with a cold cup of liquid that makes him sleep and when he wakes up he feels like he’s been dead.

But it’s a routine. Moss shows up sometimes and gives him pastries and sweet things and gently touches his hand, a comfort. Once, Murphy is guided to the mess hall by Ryfe and sat down across from Blake. Bellamy wants Murphy to look him in the eyes and to touch Murphy’s hands and his face and know if he’s doing alright and Murphy doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t want to talk to Blake. He’s still wearing the shell, isn’t he?

Kane is there too, wants to see that Murphy is doing his job so the fucking alliance between Skaikru and the Grounders can hold steady. His vacation caused some tension, or whatever. There’s tension in his shoulders and he just nods at all of Kane’s questions but he doesn’t really hear them. Kane touches his arm, trying to hold him back when he turns away, and the angle is just right and the pressure is just right and he flips Kane without thinking about it. Kane crashes into a table, shocked: someone yells “Mr. Murphy!” like that’s gonna fucking do anything, and he is allowed to leave or forgotten about or maybe he just got better at sneaking without realizing it, so he goes down past Wildekru and sits at the tunnel that leads out to the woods, at the drop-off point.

Someone is following him. He sits down and lets his legs dangle into the void. He’s not running. He just wants to be. Alone.

If Emori were still looking for him, she’d find him here. She’s not looking. Good. He doesn’t want her to be dead. He flicks out the knives she gave him. For cooking, not for killing. She didn’t say they couldn’t be used for anything else. She didn’t say anything about not using them on himself.

But he’s not really. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t feel — sad, or scared about what will happen in the future. He’s not going to starve to death. He won’t be alone when he dies. But he doesn’t really have any _feelings_ about it — he mostly just wants to curl up in the grass and go to sleep and not wake up. Like a double dose of the medicine Ryfe gives him every night.

The person following drops down to sit beside him. He sets down his knives, a stab of inexplicably guilt. “Ruth,” he says. The only person he feels okay to see right now.

“Mofi,” she allows.

“I knew you were following me,” he tells her. “Heard you all the way from Polis.” Silence, heavy and deep. “You coming to take me back?”

“When you’re ready,” she says, even.

“Okay,” he says, and stares blankly into nothing, feeling the silence grow between them. He gathers Emori’s knives back into his pockets. “You think Kane is gonna be alright?”

Ruth looks him over, assessing. “I think the ambassador will recover,” she says, careful.

“I just don’t like being touched,” he says, miserable.

“He should not have tried to stop you from leaving,” acknowledges Ruth. “Your response was warranted.”

“Thanks,” he says, a little shocked, taking it as it is. Glances up at her, at her worn face, her crinkled eyes. She is — much different from Ryfe. “You think I could have done better?”

“Yes,” says Ruth. “You leave yourself open when you attack.”

“Yeah,” says Murphy. “I think that’s what Ryfe is saying, too, but I don’t understand very much Trig. Uh, she always goes _ste choda op du wogeda-klir seinteim testa jomp em?_ And I don’t understand any of that.”

Ruth frowns. Murphy looks away. “Your Trigedasleng is very bad,” she says. “But I think she means to not leave your side open when you block or attack.”

“Okay,” he says. “But I don’t know how to do that, and Ryfe never tells me in a way that makes sense.”

Ruth glances up to the sky, at the sun’s position. “I report to the Commander at dusk,” she says. “Spar with me until then.”

“Yeah?” he says, sitting up. It’s — he’s already sore from his training this morning, but he never _learns_ anything with Ryfe. It’s just her yelling, and he gets up again and again and again, and nothing ever helps.

“If you are Polis’ weapon, you should have no trouble defeating a simple handmaiden,” she says, a smile tugging at the side of her mouth. She stands, offers him a hand up. He takes it.

“‘Course,” he says. “No trouble at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:  
> Murphy said something like “stay each other clear the room stay practicing attacking” but his grammar was wrong and that's not a sentence, Mofi
> 
> hey there! happy America birthday, everyone! I gotta take my laptop to the computer veterinarian today, so I don't know when you can expect to see another chapter. but that's par for the course, because now I have a Better Job and Less Free Time. don't forget, you can always talk to me on the tumblr: @icetastrophe and on the twitter: @geographconcept . thank you for reading! your comments and kudos honestly do mean the world to me. <3 <3 <3


	3. a rough hand, not a steady one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for mild gore
> 
> [gonna try to keep a once-a-week update schedule but We'll See]

Murphy gets halfway through a bout with Ruth before she backs off and says despairingly: “You’re not ready for me yet.”

“What!” He trains every day! He was doing okay! He has murdered at least six people, okay!

“Come,” she says. “We’ll get someone who fights more on your level.”

—

Ruth takes him to the barracks and introduces him to Kayden and Dena, two kids who look like they’re about eight years old.

“I’m not beating up a _little kid,_ ” says Murphy, because no. Just. No.

“No,” agrees Ruth, shaking her head. “You’re not. They’re much better than you are. But it’s a good place to start.”

“What the _fuck,_ ” says Murphy.

Kayden’s got shifty eyes and a mean right hook. He also goes for the knees. Murphy dodges, but he’s sure that he only gets the kid to say _mercy_ because of his height advantage. Ruth points it out, too, and Murphy goes “Yeah yeah yeah” and they start again.

Second time gets kinda fuzzy in the middle. He feels like he’s gonna throw up, and then he’s knuckle-deep in the dirt and he’s retching into the grass. Ow.

Ruth crouches next to him, shoves a skin of water in his hands. He opens it. It’s the same temperature as his mouth. He swallows. Again. Again. “Slow down,” says Ruth. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

“Nnnnn,” he says, and goes a little slower.

“What have you been eating?” Ruth asks. “When did you eat last?”

“Um,” says Murphy, setting the skin down. He wants his thermos. “Had breakfast. That weird seedy stuff that’s all stuck together. Granola?”

“Was that the last thing you ate?”

“…Yeah.”

Ruth says something behind her to the two kids, and they scatter. “Come on,” she says. “No wonder you suck, you don’t have any fuel to get better.”

“Okay,” says Murphy, and stays where he is. The grass is a nice place to sit. He’s tired. Doesn’t want to get up.

“Come on,” Ruth says again, and offers him a hand up.

He takes it.

—

Ruth gets him a cup of warm brown rice and some kind of vegetation and a hardboiled egg. His hands are shaking, eating it: he feels like he’s all stretched out, too little energy forced to spread too thin. “Thanks,” he says.

She frowns at him. “This is not how you treat a recruit,” she says. “Let alone a prized weapon. Eat your greens.”

He bows his head and eats the green thing. It’s bitter going down his throat, but it makes him feel better all the same. Ruth escorts him back to his room afterward, leaves a cup of water by his bedside. “Thanks,” he says again, more forcefully.

“Good night, Mofi,” she says, brushing over him. He burrows into bed, pretends to be asleep. Keeps his breathing even enough that eventually he tricks himself, too, and goes under.

—

“Commander,” says one of her handmaidens, Ruth, at her door, before dusk. Lexa looks up from the treaty she is revising. “It has come to my attention that a recruit is being misled by their instructor. I would have your thoughts on the matter of the instructor’s discipline.”

Lexa sweeps the paper aside. “Sit down, then,” she says. Ruth comes around to sit at the chair“What do you mean? You are in charge of all recruits, and their instructors. What are your thoughts?”

“It is not my recruit,” says Ruth stiffly. “It is your lukotwar.”

“Mm,” says Lexa. “Go on.”

“If he is to be Polis’ weapon, he should be treated as such. He has been beaten and starved and your chosen lukotwar does not seek to improve him, only to discipline him. That is not how you treat any kind of weapon.”

“Then you want him to be transferred to you,” says Lexa stiffly, not quite a question. “He won’t break under you. He needs to, if he’s ever to go on any missions again. He needs a rough hand, not a steady one.”

Ruth takes a deep breath. “When was I made captain of the recruits?” she asks.

Lexa feels like she’s being led on. “Seven years ago,” she says.

“And how many defects have I had in my time?”

“Three.”

Ruth waits. Lexa sighs. “Then take her,” she says. “Ryfe is under your jurisdiction now; discipline her as you see fit. Take Mofi under your wing.” And then, solemn: “He will be ready in two weeks’ time.”

“Yes, Commander,” says Ruth, equally as solemn. “I will see to it.”

—

Next morning, Ryfe yells at him over breakfast, fast words fast talk that he doesn’t know and honestly doesn’t want to. Then there’s hours and hours of fighting with the sun on the back of his neck on the training field and he’s getting that weird light-headed feeling again — _this is not how you treat a recruit, let alone a prized weapon —_ and when Ryfe pins him to the wall and presses her hand up against his throat, he says “Breja,” _mercy,_ but she snarls and presses harder and he repeats himself but she doesn’t hear him or acknowledge him —

He has Emori’s knives on him. He can’t push her off, can’t fight her off in hand-to-hand, but he can —

She taught him the best places to stab a person. The knife goes in — a stab isn’t like a push, it’s a punch with a blade at the end of it, and —

_They’re for cooking, not for killing._

He angles down a centimeter, enough so that she might survive. (It’s easier with a bullet. To know where to hit.)

Her hands come off his throat to wrap around his wrist, but she’s too late — he wrenches the blade out. Blood all over his hands. Blood all over his shirt. Maybe some guts, too. It’s real gross.

She falls. Someone looks over. Someone else shouts. He takes a step forwards, towards her. He wants to wash his hands. Someone is calling for Ruth. Someone else holds him back, like he’s gonna finish the job. He’s not sure he wants to.

They take Ryfe’s body somewhere else. Ruth’s hand comes down heavy on his shoulder. He looks up at her, at her unreadable face. “I stabbed Ryfe,” he says, numb.

Ruth sighs. “Sit down, Mofi,” she says, and takes him to sit on one of the benches. There is ice for his shoulders. She hands him his thermos. He doesn’t want to touch it. She takes his hands, wets a towel, wipes them off. “Drink.”

He swallows.

She splits an orange apart in her hands, gives him half. It is bright. Sharp. Sweet. “You did good, Mofi,” she says.

He leans over and throws up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ruth: look i was nice to him for like two sentences and he killed someone sooooo i think my method is better  
> lexa: [BIG SIGH]
> 
> the vegetation/vegetables is kale  
> MURPHY’S NEVER EATEN LEAVES BEFORE, OK. IT’S JUST WEIRD TO HIM
> 
> emori: murphy eat these leaves  
> murphy: no im not a giraffe  
> emori: what is a giraffe
> 
> alright pals thanks for reading! got kudos? comments? predictions for the next chapter? leave them below! sometimes i even reply to them. <3 <3


	4. duckling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i just started watching pretty little liars can you tell (i’m on season 4) (spencer is my favorite)
> 
> content warning for character death and a lil bit of gore (it has to do with scabs which personally really grosses me out)

“Hey,” says Murphy when Ruth comes to his door the next morning. Some nameless guard chained him to the bed last night, and she’s wondering why he’s late. “Can you look at this? It really hurts.” He keeps yanking at the cuff, so the skin has torn, and then scabbed over, but it’s swollen and puffy.

Ruth frowns. “Hm,” she says. She touches the ring. He hisses. She stops touching it. Her hands are warm, but not unkind. “Do you want me to deal with this, or do you want a healer?”

“What’s the difference?” he asks. And then, easy: “I trust you.”

Ruth nods, and gets a mean little knife out. Dips it into one of the candles still burning on the desk, cleanses it. “You want something to bite down on, or a herb?” she asks, considerate.

Murphy wrinkles his nose. “I can keep quiet,” he says.

Ruth nods, washes the scab out with water and soap from the little basin by his bed. Softens the scabbing. She holds his ankle in one hand — a flutter of panic in his chest, but he guesses it’s to keep him from kicking her in the face — and starts picking at the scab with the knife, draining it.

Murphy buries his face in his shoulder to keep from crying out. Without looking up, or slowing down, Ruth says, patient: “Almost over, duckling.”

The second she lets go, Murphy tugs his ankle away. The chain rattles, slipping back over the wound. He hisses. She frowns — _you should have expected that —_ , pulls the cuff off, and washes it again. Unlocks the cuff, removes it from the bed altogether. Spreads a green, sharp-smelling ointment over it, fastens a bandage on top.

“What is that?” he asks, curious.

“It’ll keep the scrape clean,” says Ruth. “Numb the pain. Keep swelling down.”

Murphy shakes his head. “Not that. The thing you called me. _Duckling._ What is that?”

Ruth looks up at him. “It’s a baby duck,” she says. “They follow you around. It is —“ pause, careful. “Affectionate.”

“Oh,” he says, feeling something warm build up in his throat. “Alright. Thanks, Ruth.”

“Of course, Mofi,” she says. Wraps the chain from his bedpost around her hand. “I will take care of this,” she says. “Get dressed and come down for breakfast."

—

Ruth takes him on the obstacle course again, and he’s smooth and fast and he can’t fight real well but he can shoot people from a distance, so she gets him bullets and they practice all afternoon with his gun and the next day she gives him a tattoo.

He feels a stab of betrayal as the needle goes in. As she explains where he’s to go. He looks away while she’s doing it, as her voice rises and falls. Rafel. Leader of some bullshit. Beardy man. Loud, shouty. You have until midnight.

She touches his face, pulls it toward her, till he meets her eyes. “Mofi,” she says. Real gentle. “Bring proof back to the Commander.”

“Alright,” he says.

She keeps her hand on his face, finally lets it drop. “Be swift,” she says. “I will be here when you return.”

He goes.

—

He wears a long coat and tucks his gun into a pocket. It is warm out, but he is not out of place in the market at Wildekru, nor when he slips into an outbuilding where there’s a shouty meeting taking place. Some of it is snatches of English, pulled in between the nonsense of Trigedasleng. He stays after the meeting, lurks around. He gets close enough, sticks in till he’s the last one left.

“What do you want?” says Rafel.

“Tell me more,” he says, voice hoarse.

Rafel starts talking. He looks to the side for a moment, and — Murphy stabs him in the ear, through to the brain. It’s how Ryfe always tells him how she would kill him if he ever got out of hand. He does it with the long knife that Ruth gave him, something he might use for gutting fish. Rafel slumps. Murphy removes the knife, hacks away at his ear till it comes clean. Gross. Folds up the ear in a napkin. Wipes the knife on his pants. Frowns. Whatever. Tucks all of that away in a pocket, takes the back entrance, heads back to Polis.

He gives the folded napkin to the Commander, who nods and tucks it aside. Glances to Ruth, who leaves her position by the Commander’s side and takes him to the adjacent room, prepares his skin to finish the tattoo. “It itches,” he tells her, because he’s spent all day trying not to touch it.

“Tell me about your method,” says Ruth, a distraction, her hands cool over his warm skin.

“Stabbed him with the real long knife,” he says. “Didn’t understand what he was talking about. Straight through. Ear to brain. Painless.” Swallows, can’t look at Ruth’s hands over his new ink, can’t bear to look at it.

“You did good,” says Ruth, calm, even. “What might you do differently next time?”

He shrugs.

“Think about it,” she insists, rubbing at his skin. “Come down to dinner.”

She takes him down to dinner. He pulls his shirt down over his tattoo, hides it. Ruth raps sharply at the table: concentrate here, Mofi. Eat your protein.

Before he goes to bed, she splits and orange with him He doesn’t know if he likes them or not.

—

He gets better at killing, and he gets a little better at fighting. But — it’s not his strong suit. He kicks while they’re down, while they’re not expecting it: he says, _I forgive you_ and then strangles them while they’re asleep.

He has — a taste for it. Copper on his tongue. Contact points to his heart, his lungs, the cold feeling up his spine. The thrill of it. Bitter and bloodlust. And the oranges that Ruth splits with him, as they talk about what happened, how he might improve in the future, what he did well. He always earns her praise, but he never feels like she’s disappointed in him, just, here is what to do next time. You learn from your mistakes, Mofi, you don’t beat yourself up over them.

He learns their names before he kills them. Zenn. Gunshot to the head. Illian. Gunshot to the heart, watches him hit his knees onto concrete before he goes in for a second one to the head. Tressa. He misses the first time around, and she turns too fast — it is ugly, and quick, and he says _your fight is over_ when he cuts her throat. He comes back to Polis with blood all over his face and Ruth frowns and makes him wash before she will mark him. He gets two oranges that night, or at least two halves of one, because he and Ruth talk so long about it. He goes to bed with a headache and Ruth lets him sleep in the next morning.

He depends on his gun. Soemara. Gun to the head. Aria, gun pressed up against her throat, a hissed _don’t move_ , and he shoots her anyway even though she doesn’t, recoil vibrating all the way up his arm. His gun jams with Anke, and he has to fight them until they’re backed into a corner with wild eyes, and he says, _it doesn’t have to hurt_ and Anke bows their head and he —

He has nightmares after that. He clutches at Ruth. Please. Not again. Let me sleep today. Ruth purses her lips and says, “Get up, Mofi. We’re going on a trip. Pack your bag for an overnight.”

He scrambles to obey.

—

She gets the letter a little past dusk, picked up from the village eight miles down the road. Breaks the seal with a fingernail, sharp. Opens it, skims it, and then settles down to read it again.

Her little lukotwar is doing well. He will never inherit her kingdom, but he will do well for himself, in Polis; a position of power. She will hold him to it.

And she will make a profit out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheerynoir: GASP ILLIAN NO  
> me: that boy was going DOWN
> 
> you: how does murphy not know what a duckling is?  
> me: there were NO DUCKS in SPACE
> 
> anyhow! your kudos and comments mean the world to me, even if you're reading this many years after I have finished it. shoutout to the person live-blogging nqf in the comments right now. you're the coolest. talk to me anytime - @icetastrophe on tumblr and @geographconcept on twitter. <3 thanks for reading!


	5. cute for a lukotwar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> artistic license - medical  
> cw: alcohol

He packs his knives, a change of clothes, and his thermos. Fills it with water from the pipes before he goes down to meet Ruth; she sets a hand across his shoulders and says “Come.”

They stop by Ruth’s room before they leave. She retreives four bottles from under her bed. One of the other girls says something to Ruth — “Em bos,” with kind of a little smile.

“Em lukotwar? Mofi?” says Ruth, disbelieving.

The girl nods, embarrassed.

Ruth frowns. “Em krolanes feisnes,” she says. The girl laughs. Then Ruth — embraces the girl, and returns to Murphy.

“I heard my name?” he asks.

“She says you’re cute for a lukotwar,” says Ruth.

He swallows. “And what did you say?”

Ruth glances at him. “I said you’re alright.”

—

They go down to the market at Wildekru and stop by one of the houses. Ruth knocks; an old woman answers, lighter and shorter than Ruth and kind of wrinkled. She exclaims in Trigedasleng, and Ruth says quietly, “I’m on duty, nomon. I can’t stay. This is Mofi. We are going to the forest.”

The woman looks curiously at Murphy, but sher nods, and wraps her arms around Ruth. After a moment, Ruth bends down and returns the embrace. She gives one of the bottles from her bag to the old woman. Then she takes a step back, says her goodbyes, and: “Come on, Mofi.”

He follows.

—

She takes him a mile out, into the forest beyond the Wilde, where they took him in the cart weeks and weeks ago. He wasn’t enjoying the scenery very much then. She stops him at a random fork in the road, takes a different path. There are two trees here; one is much larger than the other, a big climbing tree. The other is younger, hardly five years old. “These are my brothers,” she says.

“What?” he says, stupid.

“Wildekru doesn’t burn their dead. We bury them, and they become trees.” She indicates the bigger one. “This is my little brother. Tom. Tommy.”

He feels dumb, and out of place, and the air around him is mournful and he’s thinking, inexplicably, of _Finn —_ so he steps forward and he’s going up the tree before he can even think about it. Branch. Foot. Hand. Balance. Careful. It’s distracting, and it’s good, and he doesn’t have to think about the exact timbre of Ruth’s voice, if she’s sad, if he should comfort her. He sits on a branch above her head anyway, ready to jump down if he needs to.

“He loved climbing trees, too,” says Ruth.

Murphy feels a little better. “Was he a runaway like us?” he asks.

“No,” says Ruth. Then, it’s spilling out of her, like a release. Murphy’s been there. “It was his last season home: the next season he was to be sent to Polis. His name was Tommy.”

“I’m sorry,” says Murphy.

“What?” says Ruth.

“People dying,” says Murphy. “It’s bullshit. You say ‘I’m sorry’.”

“Skaikru customs?” asks Ruth.

“I guess,” he says, out of place.

“Come down,” says Ruth. “We are going to the mountains.

He lands hard on the ground. He doesn’t mind.

—

It is not a mountain. He has seen mountains, has looked on Mount Weather from the outside. It is a very big hill. He is getting stronger, but he still needs to take a few breaks to drink water. Ruth is patient, but then again, she has longer legs. Bigger strides, less energy. Then Ruth takes him off the path, to a little house. He goes to get wood for a fire. Soon, there’s a flame going in the hearth, and Ruth has laid their bedrolls out on the ground. Cozy.

“Did you bring me an orange?” he asks, kind of joking.

Ruth starts, looks up at him. Smiles a little, maybe. “Something a little stronger today, Mofi,” she says. And brings out the bottles from her bag.

He’s had trouble moving his left hand for the past few days: curling and uncurling his fingers, holding onto things. Ruth notices, hands him one bottle of apple cider and says “Drink. How did this happen?”

“They tortured me for a little bit when they brought me back to Polis,” he says, the words bitter on his tongue. He takes a swig of cider as Ruth takes hold of his left wrist, his arm. He does not flinch. He does not pull his arm away. “I think I tugged at that hand more. It’s been off and on for awhile, but it’s started to really hurt.” She keeps poking at him, and the silence is bad, so he says: “Did you ever try to run away?”

Ruth shrugs, like it is no great thing. “We are sent to Polis at six,” she says. “I was nine. Maybe ten. I kept running. They discouraged it. Strongly. I would go home, and my mother would cry. Eventually, when the guards came, they would beat my mother for encouraging me. I would visit my brother in his barracks, and I could tell he liked it, but. Wiggle your fingers for me.”

He does. “Hurts,” he tells her. “Any movement, it’s just all stingy and stabby.”

Ruth frowns, pulls something out of her bag. “Keep drinking,” she says.

“Keep talking,” he raises, and takes another swig.

Ruth rubs something clear and cool onto his skin, and it’s silent for another moment. He looks away from her. “But he put a stop to it,” she says eventually. “I saw what happened to those that couldn’t adapt. They broke themselves — and the blood stained the barracks. That would not be me. A superior noticed me during drills. Said I could rise high if changes were made. So I changed. And now I serve the Commander.”

“Like you noticed me,” says Murphy, quiet.

“Not really,” says Ruth. “You will never rise higher than lukotwar. And you struggle to keep even that in check.”

“You said I was doing good,” says Murphy, feeling — hurt?

“You are,” agrees Ruth, neutral. “But you must try harder, must adapt quicker. Polis breaks everyone, Mofi. It will break you too, if you let it.”

Murphy looks away, lets the silence stretch. Drinks more cider. It is sweet, going down: not like the moonshine Monty makes, not like the whiskey in the bunker, sharp and smoky. It is like apple juice, with something extra. “You brought this from Wildekru,” he says, not a question.

“Yes,” she says, noncomittal, admitting nothing. She has let go of his arm now, but he doesn’t want to look at her. He doesn’t want to see her face, and her expectations of him. He swallows, again, and again, concentrating on the bottle in his hand and the blur of her face and the darkening sky.

“Lexa — the Commander — said that people like me don’t have breaking points. Just — flashpoints. So that we can go on without shattering, I guess. Is that — real?”

Ruth frowns. “Perhaps,” she allows. “But listen to me closely, Mofi: Soldiers who cannot adapt die. By their own hand, more often than anything. Elders patrol the barracks for a reason.” She touches the raised scars at the edges of his left wrist, and says, very careful: “Do not give me a reason to post someone at the end of your bed.”

He finishes his cider. “They’re not — I didn’t do them. It’s old injuries. Is my arm gonna be okay?”

“Yes,” says Ruth. “You’ll need to stretch your wrist more often, with the wrist stretches I already showed you. The blood has pooled and stagnated,” she tells him.

“Alright,” he says. “Tell me about how you became the Commander’s handmaiden and in charge of all the Wildekru recruits.”

“It was seven summers ago,” says Ruth, obligingly. “The previous handmaiden had been killed in a conflict with Trishanakru, who used a swarm of wasps to do the deed, so the position was open…"

He doesn’t remember falling asleep when he wakes in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> em bos - he’s cute (boss-looking)  
> em lukotwar? mofi? - i do not need to translate this  
> em krolanes feisnes - spoilers, but basically ‘he is not’, or ‘he’s alright’  
> nomon - mother
> 
> they’re mutant fast-growing trees
> 
> thanks for reading! it's been a really bad two weeks. please leave me comments so i can stare at them with both my eyes, at the same time. <3 <3


	6. leila

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for death?

When they get back to Polis, Ruth takes him to visit Ryfe. She is not awake when they enter, and Murphy is glad for it. The room is dark, and Murphy almost doesn’t notice Jasper sitting by the bed, head in his hands. He looks up when Ruth and Murphy come closer to the bed, and he draws his lips into a thin line. Doesn’t say anything.

Ruth ignores Jasper. Looking down at Ryfe, she says “You should have finished the job.”

Murphy shudders at the thought of it — having Ryfe’s blood on his hands at all was bad enough. “Didn’t get a tattoo for it,” he says, rueful.

“Some things are a matter of professional pride, Mofi,” says Ruth.

“Why don’t you kill her then,” he mutters, hardly a question.

“Not my kill to take,” says Ruth, easy, like it’s the obvious answer.

Jasper makes a noise. “Don’t,” he says, reedy and thin. “Don’t talk about her like that, she’s brave and strong and —“

Ruth ignores him. “Let’s go, Mofi,” she says, and he leaves Ryfe and Jasper to it. He is — glad that it’s over. Watching her still face, asleep, is too — intimate. She would never allow it.

—

“You said she was treating me — wrong,” says Murphy much later, over dinner. “Ryfe, I mean. And that’s against _your_ professional pride.”

“In a manner of speaking,” says Ruth. “But you, technically, aren’t my responsibility. The recruits are mine. You’re lukotwar.”

“I didn’t want to use Emori’s knives for killing,” he says, real quiet. “She said they were only for cooking.”

“There are other ways to kill,” says Ruth, almost gentle.

“Well, I’m yours now,” says Murphy. “Teach me.”

So she does.

—

Spencer dies with poison in her cup and he gets a little bird tattooed on the side of his ribcage. Celab dies with an arrow through his heart and blood staining his lips. Leila — Leila —

Leila is nine years old. She is asleep. He is quiet, quiet, quiet. The house is dark, lit only by the moon. He has — a plastic bag. It goes over her head, cinched at the bottom. She wakes up — too late. She doesn’t make any noise.

Connor’s eyes, wide-open in panic. Leila’s eyes, fluttering open. He misses the weight of his gun in his hand.

He doesn’t eat the orange half that Ruth gives him. It stays on his bedside table, getting worse.

He doesn’t go down for training in the morning. When Ruth comes up to find out why, he turns his head to the side and just says “Mercy.” Ruth sighs, pulls up a chair, and doesn’t press on his open wound.

—

He takes a few days off. Ruth comes up and insists that he gets out of bed, does stretches and light exercise. Going for a walk, coming up and down the stairs. Eating something, anything, just one carrot, Mofi.

He looks at her, miserable, and goes back to sleep.

—

Ruth comes up the stairs on fifth day and she says “Ryfe is dead.” and Murphy feels nothing except that his chest is hollow and his lungs are empty.

“Okay,” he says, and sits up.

“You’re going on an away mission,” says Ruth. He can’t wrap his mind around the sentence. “Another kru. To kill their leader.”

“Alright,” he says. “When?”

“Soon,” says Ruth. “You need to come up with a story about where you’re from.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Come down for breakfast,” she says, hopeful. “We’ll talk about it more.”

He looks at her and her unsmiling face, the scars on her hands. He knows about the kill-marks on her chest, ragged lines into tally marks. There’s a stab of betrayal in his heart — _how could you send me to kill her? —_ but it was the Commander who told him where to go, what to look for, who to murder. And it’ll happen again, and again, and again, until Lexa dies and a new Commander rises and — Maybe he’ll be free then.

He goes down to breakfast. He eats his rice. He talks about his plan. He thinks about it. It’s a new project. It’s a new day. It might be okay.

He goes down to talk to Prosper and Moss in the barracks. He is from Oshokru. He suns himself in the courtyard, trying to become darker like them, like Ruth, the same shade as Bellamy. He burns and peels instead, red skin pulling away from his back, his face, his arms.

“It’s not too late to change your story,” says Ruth, rubbing aloe into his skin.

“No,” he says, stubborn and stupid. His skin is too raw to put a tattoo onto it. He will spend every day in the sun from now on.

Ruth tries to teach him a little Trigedasleng. He is not a very good student. All he remembers is the swears, and he strings them all together into one. He calls it the Ruth Special. Ruth smiles a little.

His skin heals eventually. Prosper is the one that tattoos him, left shoulder. The half-butterfly revenge tattoo, sacred to Oshokru, something that marks him more than his story ever could.

“You don’t even know how to swim,” says Prosper to him, even and very cool.

“It’s gonna be fine,” says Murphy. He keeps repeating it to himself. It’s gonna be fine it’s gonna be fine it’s gotta be okay I can’t do this anymore if it’s not I just have to forget and move on it’s gonna be fine.

“Alright,” says Prosper, doubtful, maybe concerned. “Lukotwar.”

“That’s fucking right,” says Murphy, sharp. “Don’t forget it.”

Ruth gives him a map. Something about his tattoo means that he has eight weeks. He is to kill Peter, the leader of the kru. Ruth tells him some reason why, but he doesn’t _care —_ he does it or he dies and that’s just the end of it. And when it is over he can return to Ruth and she will split an orange with him and it will — It will have to be enough.

He takes his gun. His thermos. Emori’s knives. Jerky. He goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jasper get some better friends
> 
> Cuntwaffle whoreson fuckrat godDAMN — the Ruth Special
> 
> as always, thank you for reading. things have been awful lately, as you may have noticed, and i am glad you are reading my fanfiction about a sad assassin boy. thank you.
> 
> an additional scene for this can be found on my tumblr @icetastrophe


	7. it won't be that hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to update this quickly after the Pain of the last chapter but being a human being is hard
> 
> nevertheless, please enjoy

Prosper is the one who escorts him out of the city, hand on his shoulder, draped in a cloak to hide both of them. Past the edge of Wildekru, out of the woods, he shrugs the cloak off. Turns to go.

Prosper raises a hand. “Wait,” he says. Murphy stops. “Take this.” Pulls something out of his bag. Provisions. An apple. Dried fish. Trail mix, raisins and chocolate and those hard pretzels from the mess hall.

“Oh,” says Murphy, stupid. “Thanks.”

Prosper doesn’t even absolve himself with the excuse of Moss. “You don’t speak anything but gonpleisleng,” he says. “Pretend to be deaf. Or dumb. It won’t be that hard.”

Murphy scowls. Prosper lets him leave.

—

He munches through most of the trail mix on the first day like a fucking idiot and he doesn’t even get there until the next day, and then it’s like, well, he can’t just walk in, it’s a secret, so he makes camp by the ruins and then he doesn’t have anything to do except sharpen his knives and whittle away and make shitty art out of sticks. And on the third day, it rains, so hard that looking up into the sky makes him feel like he’s drowning, and he’s breathing more water than air, so he keeps his head down and he finds the best cover he can, but he’s soaked to the bone before too long, shivering and freezing, and all he can think is _I came out all this way to die from exposure._

Ruth would laugh at him. Ruth would also get him dry and warm and safe, but she’d laugh all the same. Emori would tuck him into a hidey-hole she knows about and build a fire. Moss would pull an umbrella from somewhere and hold it over the both of them.

He shoves those thoughts away. He has to get into the kru. He will take a meal with them and then kill their leader and then he will be on his merry way. He doesn’t have to think about what comes after. That there is a definite endpoint, a reachable, easy goal, makes things easier. Possible.

A man emerges from the mouth of the ruins. He yells something over the rain: Murphy has no idea what he says. He stands up, cautious, wet. The man repeats himself, makes an impatient _come on_ gesture, and then disappears into the ruins. Murphy swallows, and follows him inside.

—

Dime just misses the rain, but Nova’s still left a thoughtful towel for him. They’d both watched the clouds come in, dark and foreboding.

It’s Nova who touches his elbow at dinner and says “Hey, boss, kid’s still out there in the rain. Seems pretty determined.”

Dime sets his fork down. “Okay,” he goes, and gets up.

Kid’s been out there a day or two. Butterfly tattoo on his skinny shoulder, pale enough to be one of theirs. Looks kind of. Lizardy. Looks a little drowned. Doesn’t look up when Dime appears at the entrance to the underground.

“You gonna come in or what?” he shouts over the rain. Kid stands up, wary. Dime doesn’t have tme for this. “Come on,” he says. “I don’t got all day,” turns his back on the kid, takes him deeper inside. Kid’s following, but Dime doesn’t turn his head to look.

Kid follows him into the first scout room. He’s not real responsive to direction, so Dime throws a towel around his shoulders, ignores the flinch, and watches as the kid dries off the best he can. He’s dripping all over the floor. It’s gonna have to be mopped up. Nike, who is on watch duty there at the entrance, is sent to get Peter, and when he comes, Jon is close behind him. They’re arguing in low voices about something, but Dime doesn’t worry; they almost always are when they think nobody can hear them.

“Hey, boss,” Dime says. “Got a settler out here. You wanna take a look at him?”

Peter gives him a once-over. The boy shivers, towels harder. “Looks like a half-drowned cat,” he says, dismissive. Kid doesn’t react.

“Doesn’t respond to words,” says Dime. “Don’t think he talks. He’s got an Oshokru tattoo, but he’s definitely not from there.”

Peter lunges forward, spreads his arms out wide. Kid flinches back, raises the towel to protect himself. Jon frowns. Peter laughs, not unkindly, looks to Jon. “What do you think?”

Jon inclines his head towards the kid. “He’s too cold, looks like hypothermia. Get him some dry clothes and a hot meal.”

Peter shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “In the morning we’ll see him out or put him to work. Cook could use some help in the kitchen. Dime, can you handle that?”

Dime can handle that.

—

His escort — Dyme? Dime? — takes him to what looks like their medical wing. There’s a guy his age there, looks washed out, pale and with very light hair, lighter than Clarke’s. Guy tries to talk to him, but it’s all nonsense, so he looks away, bored. The guy starts pulling at his wet clothes. Murphy yells and shoves him away. Dime takes a step forward. Guy raises his hands — _no harm, see?_ — and Murphy regards them both with new suspicion. “Yu tagon?” asks the guy.

Murphy just shakes his head. Guy points to himself. “Em tag in Feelycks,” he says. Oh. A name.

He doesn’t say anything. Felix looks him over. “Bluaise?” he asks Dime. “Blu? Aise?”

Dime frowns, shakes his head. “Doe,” he says, very firm. Points to Murphy. “Doe,” he says. Points to himself. “Dime.” His voice is rougher, deeper than Felix’s.

Murphy looks away. Felix sighs.

Felix says some more words, too quickly and all shoved together, and finally pushes a bundle of dry clothes at him. Points to a screen nearby. Murphy ducks behind it, changes out of his very wet clothes, into new, stranger clothes. Long-sleeved red soft shirt with little holes all over it. Grey pants with patches over the knees, mismatched and colorful. His boots are soaked, but he pulls on new dry socks and leaves them off. Emerges from behind the screen. Felix’s eyes rake over him. Dime seems disinterested.

Felix touches his forehead, feeling for a fever. Then starts touching his chest, his ribcage, testing for bruises or broken ribs, maybe. Murphy shoves him away and Felix raises his hands again. Then makes a slashing motion with his hand and says clearly: _no._ Murphy takes a step back. Felix grabs his hand and Murphy shouts and tugs away, and Felix repeats the gesture. They do it several more times until Murphy Gets it, and the next time Felix touches him, he does the gesture. Felix grins. Dime picks at his fingernails.

He’s still kind of cold, but he’s warming up. Felix gets him dry blankets, wraps them around his shoulders. Motions wildly and incoherently until Murphy sits down on the bed. Felix retrieves some warm rice packs and presses them to his wrists, behind his knees, between his legs, on his neck;where his heartbeat can be felt the strongest. Murphy squirms. He pulls the one off his neck. Felix allows this, says a bunch of words, and Murphy gets bored and lets his mind wander. Sits up when the door opens again. Throws off the blankets. Felix sighs.

It’s the taller man that came down to look at him; close-up, he seems even bigger, too tall to really be allowed. He has kind of shaggy black hair and skin the color of a well-fed and happy Bellamy, like he was at the dropship. Burnished and brown and good. He’s holding a bag, a sack with a drawstring at the top. He asks Dime and Felix questions, which are answered, and then gives a little wave and says “Jon.” So it’s a common name even on the ground.

Dime says “Doe,” for him. Jon nods.

He crouches on the floor next to his bed, so that he’s lower than Murphy’s eye level, less of a threat. He opens the bag at the top. It’s full of — brightly colored pillows? Murphy looks up at Jon, confused. Doesn’t move. Jon gestures with the bag, and Murphy scooches a little farther away. Jon sighs and pulls out a grey pillow with ears. The ears are pink, and the pillow has a long — nose? Jon drops it into Murphy’s lap. It is filled with beans. He squishes it in his hand, tosses it up and it lands softly back onto him. Jon gives him a sort of sad smile, and stands up. Takes his leave with Dime.

Felix picks up his bag that he had set down near the bed. Murphy makes the _no_ signal, frantic — if anybody finds the gun, then he’s screwed. Felix opens the drawer in the table next to the bed, and drops his bag in, then raises his hands again. _I don’t mean any harm._ Murphy starts breathing again. Felix leaves a glass of water on the little table, shuts off the lights.

He snuggles the weird grey pillow to his chest, and stops thinking long enough to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonpleisleng - warrior language/English
> 
> TIME TO THOROUGHLY SOAK IN THE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS
> 
> tagon - name  
> tag in - name (verb)
> 
> it’s one cloak for the both of them, just to be clear. ONE CLOAK = ONE MAN
> 
> they just tore apart his backstory in minutes. murphy you Fool
> 
> as always, thank you for reading. please leave me comments. they are extremely good. i love you.


	8. cook rose???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am Mofi kom Oshokru, and I have come here to seek refuge. I mean no harm, I’m just hungry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow sorry this chapter took SO LONG 
> 
> this chapter is g a y. also some other stuff happens like whatever

He wakes up to the smell of pancakes — pancakes?! — being set down by his bed, and he cracks an eye open. It’s still kind of semi-dark, and the person standing by his bed clicks a light on, a lantern that burns coldly, like the solar lamps they have back at the dropship. It’s Felix. He sits up.

There’s a fork with the pancakes. He darts a glance to Felix, who looks expectant, so he pulls the plate to his lap, kind of wobbly and heavy, and digs in. There’s syrup between the pancakes, and not on top, which is kind of strange but must have been easier to transport. They’re big, and fluffy, not like the burned small circles they have in Polis, with weird seeds in them. Ruth had said “They’re called pancakes because they’re made in a pan, like a cake, and the seeds are good for you.” And Murphy had gone on eating.

There are three pancakes. He licks the syrup off his fingers, and Felix makes a sound, like he’s laughing at Murphy. Murphy looks up, suspicious, and Felix looks pointedly to the side, so he goes on with it. When he finishes, he looks sadly down at the plate, licks his fingers again, and sets it aside. Felix makes another sound, dips a towel into his glass of water — rude! — and comes closer to him with it. Murphy leans back. Felix gestures at his own face, which, what? and puts the cloth close to him again. Murphy — stays still.

Felix’s left hand on his face, keeping him steady. Wipes the syrup off his face with the cloth with his right hand. Murphy can feel his cheeks getting very warm. Felix’s mouth twitches. Murphy pulls back as soon as Felix takes his hands off and looks away. He kind of wants to go back to sleep. He holds the glass in his hands, takes a drink. Felix nods and then steps away to do something else. Murphy sets the glass down. He wants to snuggle back into sleep. He pulls the quilt back over him, shoves his face into the pillow. Breathes. Kind of drifts off, half-asleep, half-awake.

Felix is talking to someone at the door. There’s a smaller voice next to him. The voices are coming closer. Felix suddenly pulls the blankets back. Murphy sits up, yelling, very annoyed. Felix points to the person next to him — a girl, maybe, with short, shaved hair and skin the color of a late autumn day, like hot cocoa with too much milk in it. She’s — young. Younger than Moss, even. Shorter, for sure. “Rose,” says Felix, an introduction. Rose makes a gesture — touches her ear and then shakes both hands, and Murphy stares. “Doe,” Felix says, and Rose just points to Murphy.

Murphy looks away. It’s not interesting. Rose steps forward and makes the _no_ gesture, right in front of his face. Murphy snaps his attention back to her, glares. Rose glares back. Not so soft, then. Rose points to Felix, says “Felix,” very clearly, and then makes a corkscrewing motion next to her head. Murphy stares at her. Hesitant, he copies the motion. Rose grins. Rose points to herself. Murphy repeats the corkscrew. Rose sighs.

Rose points to herself, repeats the hand-shaking gesture. Oh. Like a — like a personal sign, for yourself. Like a title. A title sign, for your name. A namesign? Something like that. Murphy copies her, and then points to Felix and does the corkscrew. Rose’s grin is brighter than the solar-lamp on beside him. She high-fives Felix, who also has a grin tugging at his face. Murphy stares at them. Okay. He can do hand-signs. If all his mouth can do is lie ( _I am Mofi kom Oshokru, and I have come here to seek refuge. I mean no harm, I’m just hungry)_ his hands can speak the truth.

—

Rose teaches him more signs: _home, yes, work, hungry, come/go, more,_ and then, weirdly, _cook_. And then she and Felix take him to the kitchen, something a little more like what they had on the Ark, big metal boxes to heat and cool things, at least six sinks. Rack after rack of dried meat. Everything lit by the cold solar-lamps, all above their heads. Like it was already there; not like everything in Polis, built and restored by human hands. Here, it’s harder to remember that they’re underground. They must have scavenged it — who would have dragged those big boxes here? What use would a Grounder have for a metal box? They couldn’t have made them; the technology doesn’t really exist anymore. Where are they getting their electricity? From the sun? That made sense in space, but it doesn’t really, here. Rose snaps her fingers in front of his face and he drags his gaze away and back to her eyes. She points to the single man standing at a sink, and signs _Cook_ , which?? Is he going to cook that man? Is that what he was brought here for? No wonder the Commander wants their leader dead, this is Reapers and Mountain Men all over again —

He signs _no_ at Rose, panicked, and Rose rolls her eyes. She does _Cook_ slower, and then her own sign. Cook Rose? No??? He makes a noise of panic, of refusal. Rose sighs. Felix has gotten the attention of the man, and the man seems very agreeable until he actually looks at Murphy, and then he is striding over with big steps and he’s taller than Murphy is, and he points to the unfinished tattoo on Murphy’s bicep and yells something at him. Murphy takes a step back. The man’s hands are on his shoulders then, _shaking_ him — and his teeth rattle and his brain sloshes around in his skull and there’s a low whimper coming out from behind his tongue — Rose gets between them and the man lets go of Murphy’s shoulders.

Murphy starts looking for an exit. Felix holds him back, murmurs words of reassurance in his ear, nothing of which he can understand. But they sound smooth and quieting. He doesn’t want to be reassured. He wants to be safe. He signs _go_ to Felix and Felix just signs back _no_ , but careful, slowly. Murphy looks away. Rose and the man are yelling. Murphy strings together _go home,_ tries to take a step away. He can fight both of them, Rose and Felix, until he can escape back to the medical wing, bury himself under the covers. But they wouldn’t like him then. They wouldn’t let him stay. He does _go home_ again, despairing. Felix drags him over to the sink. Rose follows. Cook hovers, then turns on the sink. Felix demonstrates: this is how you wash a dish. Sink, soap, water, scrub. Drain, scour, set to dry. Murphy scowls and takes the next plate from Felix. He’s done his time in the kitchens on the Ark. Felix lets him, backs away. He hardly notices when Felix and Rose leave.

After a measure of time, Cook pulls him away from the sink. He stands awkwardly at the counter, dripping. Cook puts a plate of food in front of him. Rice and bread and a mystery brown soup. He leans up against the counter and eats.

He watches Cook mess around in the sink. Takes stuff out of it, puts it in the other sink across the kitchen. When he’s done eating, he washes his own plate and bowl and sets them to dry. There aren’t any more knives in the sink.

It reminds him of the Skybox. He swallows, hard, and goes back to it. His arms ache, even after all the weight training Ruth made him do. When Felix and Rose come back for him, he takes a shower in the privacy of Medical, dresses in soft things that Felix sets out that must be pajamas. Then: sleep, all-encompassing and thankfully dreamless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rose’s namesign — loud  
> felix’s namesign — curly?  
> Cook — cook (verb)
> 
> the sun-lamps are LED lights
> 
> i keep saying the tattoo is on murphy’s shoulder but it’s on his bicep, fuck anatomy
> 
> anyhow im gonna leave y'all with the image of murphy in soft pajamas, good night


	9. night shift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i move in less than a week what am i doing updating fanfiction

Being here is easy. Too easy. Felix takes him to the kitchens in the morning for the next week, and he scrubs dishes until his hands are red and raw and Cook hands him a bowl full of something instead. He stares until Cook demonstrates; stir around and around until it’s fully mixed. Stirring and mixing and then kneading bread. The next week he graduates to peeling potatoes, and while Cook watches him very carefully that first time, afterwards he just smiles and gives Murphy slices of fresh warm bread. It’s — heavenly.

Felix doesn’t walk him to the kitchens anymore, but he’s always around, doing work, mixing stuff for medicine, talking to the other, taller doctor. He guesses Felix is an apprentice, and the other doctor is the Real One. She reminds him of Abby, a little bit. He doesn’t know her name, but she has a kind smile. Felix showed him her name; elbow touches his fingertips and you wave with one hand. He’s never had to use it.

Today, Cook taps him on the shoulder and signs _Felix_ , pointing at a tray of food. Murphy nods and brings it back to Medical, sets it in front of Felix who looks kind of like he hasn’t moved in several hours, bent over papers and medicines. Reaches out, real cautious, and pokes him til Felix looks up. Felix says something warm, signs _thanks,_ and takes the hunk of warm bread and starts eating. Murphy watches him, gets him a refill on water before he takes his shower and changes into the soft pajamas.

He’s been okay so far, but that night, sleep is not good to him. He wakes, panting in the dark, to Felix over him, worry creasing at his eyes. “Breja,” he gasps out, mind still tangled with running and darkness and his _hands_ —

“Shhh,” says Felix, reaching out to him. The flinch is automatic. “Shhhh,” Felix says again, and pulls his soft grey pillow out from under the covers. Murphy grasps at it, frantic, and when Felix reaches to touch him again Murphy lets him. Felix’s hands are at his wrists, thumbs over the raised scars. Felix’s eyes meet his. Murphy wishes that the cold lantern wasn’t on, that he could still hide in the cover of darkness. _What happened to you?_ is the question, and Murphy can’t even begin to answer.

—

Dime stops by while Doe is at his shift in the kitchen. Felix straightens up, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, pushes his calculations aside.

“How’s the kid?” Dime asks, no preamble. A pause, and then. “You been sleeping?”

“Night shift,” says Felix, although the answer is ‘not really’. “Kid’s doing okay. Eating better, looking less dead. Nothing is medically wrong with him, he just won’t talk and he doesn’t really seem to understand words. Maybe a little deaf, probably a little dumb. Cook said he’s good help.”

“Yeah?” says Dime. “Barlow says he’s got nightmares.”

“Yeah,” agrees Felix. “Repeated _breja_ a bunch of times. Some yelling, thrashing. Calms down real easy when he wakes up. The soft animal, the elephant — he likes hugging that. He’s got — scars.”

“Probably gonna let him join the club,” says Dime. “Thinking about moving him to the dorms. You think he’s ready?”

Felix takes a deep breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Long as he gets a single. Nightmares can get — real loud, and he doesn’t like the tea I tried to make him. Send Rose again, for translations.”

Dime nods. “Noted,” he says. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

—

When Murphy gets back from the kitchens, Rose is there, sitting on his bed. He stares at her, not understanding, until Dime and Felix, both talking, step out from the alcove where Felix usually works. Murphy takes a step back. Rose gives a greeting, and then signs _go home_ and Murphy signs _no!_ back, frantic, takes another step back. He doesn’t want — did he do something wrong? He hasn’t even — why is this happening? _No go home, stay!_

Rose frowns at him. Dime has something in his arms — his backpack! He makes a sound, high and distressed, and lunges for it. They’re kicking him out and he doesn’t even — He is not even thinking about the mission. He just wants to — stay. He is willing to hurt Dime to get that result, but then Felix is between both of them, and he takes the bag out of Dime’s hands and shoves it into Murphy’s chest. Murphy takes it, holds on tight. Sniffles a little. God, is he crying? Christ. Suck it up, Mofi, you’re here on borrowed time, at best.

Felix plops down his soft grey pillow on top of his bag. Raises his hands in the _I don’t mean any harm_ motion, palms up, no weapon, facing forward. Tugs at the strap of his bag. Murphy takes a step forward, following. Tucks his pillow under his chin. Rose signs at him, her small hands too fast for him to catch, and his vision is kind of blurry, and he just follows after Felix who follows Dime and he snuffles back any tears he has, and he’s not crying he’s not and what is Ruth gonna say. How is he even gonna get back. They’ll have to kill him.

But they don’t go up farther, to the surface, but down into the earth, and he wipes his face on his shoulder and starts to take notice of his surroundings. Other people, Grounders, Undergrounders? They stare a little as the group walks past, chattering quietly to each other. Murphy’s face feels warm.

Finally, Dime goes down a corridor and stops in front of a door. There’s a little sign in front of it with a drawing of a deer, the kind with two faces split down the middle. Dime unlocks and opens the door, and inside is —

It’s a bedroom. Twin-sized mattress, maybe a little longer, clean sheets. A blanket folded up at the end of it. A desk. A solar lamp on top. A little dresser with drawers. Dime has to walk forward and pat the bed invitingly before he takes a step inside. He sets his bag down on the bed, and then his grey pillow on top of the pillow already there. Dime nods, and hands him the key used to open the door to the room. It’s on a long enough chain that he can slip it over his head, wear it like a necklace. Where his seashell used to rest. Dime points at him. _You and yours._ Murphy points to himself and furrows his brow. Dime nods.

Later, Dime will show him the shower room and the nearby bathroom, pointing out other dorm rooms and the common room on this floor, try to introduce him to others. Later, he will sit at the edge of a party holding a drink that seems oddly bubbly but doesn't burn his throat, surrounded by happy people. Later, he will try to blend into this kru, try to make himself a false life. But for now, he just buries his face into his gray pillow and breathes in and out, real deep, trying to trick himself into believing this is real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breja - mercy, please  
> barlow’s sign: tree
> 
> please drop me a comment if you are enjoying this, they help me keep writing! <3, thanks for reading!


	10. spy?

He keeps taking his showers in Medical. It’s — the dorm showers are more public, and it’s habit, and Felix is just waking up and he’s all sleepy and glad to see him and — He is undercover. Nobody can see him undressed. They would — _know._

He takes dinner/breakfast up to Felix once, and Rose is already there, so they sit together for a while, with Felix, and Rose is the funniest person he’s ever met even when she’s only got a limited amount of words at her disposal. Also, one of the loudest; her laughter is huge coming from her tiny body. He tries to tickle her once, and she catches his wrist so fast and so hard he feels like it is going to snap. He stops, and when he doesn’t move further, her face softens. Touches the edges of his wrists and the scars there, and then moves his fingers over her own wrists. It takes him a couple seconds. They match.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. He looks to Felix, helpless, and Felix says something to Rose and she lets go of him. He swallows. He signs Rose’s name once, and she looks back to him, and he is very careful when he pulls her towards him, to his chest. Not really a — hug, but he’s never been good at them. He strokes her short hair for a few seconds and then lets her go. She frowns up at him. He shrugs. Felix looks away from both of them.

He is too settled. He is too comfortable. He is too happy. He doesn’t deserve it. Not after — Not after Leila. He doesn’t deserve Rose, so alive and _bright_ , after Leila. He takes his hands away. He finishes eating. He wants to go home, but it is so tangled in his mind of where that is that he can hardly swallow.

—

He takes his usual shower in Medical and he — he thinks about his marred skin. The sun tattoo on his ankle that marks him as lukotwar. The thick black lines for Jaha. The concentric circles for Ontari. The bird nestled in his ribcage for Spencer. The half-butterfly on his bicep, in slightly wrong colors, for Peter. Unfinished. Unredeemed. Eight weeks. He honestly doesn’t know how long it’s been.

He practices poisoning Peter: tips vials of water into his food when he delivers it up to Peter’s office, watches silently in horror as Jon steals bites from it as they talk. He doesn’t — want to kill any more than he has to. So that’s out.

He takes apart his gun alone in his dorm, cleans each piece individually. His pillow - Rose calls it ‘elephant’, and the sign for it has something to do with your nose — his pillow sits on his bed and watches him with beady black eyes. He puts his gun back together and hides the elephant under his covers, where it can’t watch him.

He should take the gun to Peter’s office — he’s walked past it plenty of times, seen Peter and sometimes Jon hunched over sketches and maps. Kru leader stuff, he guesses. Sometimes he thinks about what will happen, to Felix, to Rose, after he leaves. He figures they’ll be fine — Jon can step in and do the rest of the work. Dime, though — he sees a little of himself in Dime, and the way Dime looks at Peter.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll never see Dime again. Instead, he’ll have Bellamy, and Ruth — and Lex and Clarke and Kane and the guilt of Ryfe hanging over his head. Is that really the better option?

He has to stop thinking about it. He has to just do it. He has to finish the job and go home — well, back to Polis anyway — and he doesn’t ever have to think about it. He doesn’t have to think about it.

He goes in the morning, before his shift in the kitchens. Peter’s office is nearer to the sky, so real sunlight filters through to splash across Peter’s desk and his bowed head and one outstretched arm. He has his backpack and his knives — Emori’s knives — clutched in one clammy hand. He steps forward, in front of the desk. Stab one — through Peter’s hand, holding him there. Step to the side, stab with his other knife through to the stomach. Throat slash so he doesn’t make a lot of noise.

Peter looks up. His eyes are bright green. Something lurches in the pit of his stomach. He feels sick. Peter makes an inquiring noise. He brings the knife up. Peter moves his hand.

Murphy is shaking. He sets the knife down on the desk. He pulls the other from his belt and sets it next to the first. “I can’t,” he says in English. It bleeds out of him, an open wound, all over. “I can’t do it. I’m a spy, I was sent here from Polis, from the Commander herself, to kill you, but I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

Peter’s face sharpens. He signs _stay,_ and then, in an odd accent: “Stay,” again, in English. He collects the two knives as he comes around the desk. Murphy takes two steps back. He doesn’t feel afraid. Not yet. “Spy?” asks Peter, still in that disjoined accent, like he was taught how to smooth words at all the wrong angles. “Show me.”

“Yes,” says Murphy. “Polis.” He raises an empty hand — _no harm, see?_ — And wobbles onto one foot. Pulls up his pant leg to show the lukotwar tattoo. He hears Peter’s inhale, but doesn’t see the reaction it causes. He’s looking anywhere else.

“Stay,” says Peter again, and he sweeps out of the room. Murphy is just standing there alone. He sits down on the green couch across from the desk just as he hears the lock click shut on the other side of the door. He touches the key around his neck. The door’s probably not locked from the inside. He could leave.

Peter told him to stay. (Bellamy told him to stay.)

He doesn’t get up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is very early in the morning and i want to go back to bed
> 
> cliiiiiffhanger, hanging from a cliff, that's why they call him cliffhanger!
> 
> if you're reading this and loving it, let me know! i can be reached in the comments section here, my tumblr @icetastrophe, or on my twitter @geographconcept. if you're reading this and hating it, stop! you don't have to do this to yourself. <3


	11. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aw, mofi

“Your stray is a spy,” Peter says when Jon opens the door.

Jon is sleep-rumpled and soft. There’s still pillow creases on his face and a shadow of stubble on his cheek. He just woke up. “What,” he says, flat, still sleepy-warm and hoarse.

“Sent from Polis,” Peter elaborates. “He speaks warrior-tongue. Come translate, it’s all gibberish to me.”

The warmth goes out of Jon’s expression, like it had been a dream. Peter kind of hates having made it happen. He shuts the door in Peter’s face, so Peter waits, awkwardly, outside.

This place, this kru, that he has built, means a lot of things to a lot of people. Peace, mostly. A sanctuary. Home. Sometimes he wishes that he could give Jon the same security. A quiet place to live with his family. A place to keep coming back to no matter how far he had wandered, chasing ghosts.

But the mantle of leadership weighs on Peter, and he selfishly wants to share it with somebody.

When Jon opens the door again, he is wearing his exhaustion again: across his shoulders, in the lines of his face. “Let’s go,” he says, and his voice has retained its usual cadence.

Peter can’t give him peace, but he can give him a sense of purpose.

—

There are whispers in the mess hall, sometimes. Chatter in the kitchens. Stuff he’s heard off-hand, partly English, partly Trigedasleng: Jon used to be a soldier. Murphy never really could picture it, not really. Jon handed out soft pillows and let the kru’s children ride on his shoulders and he always looked so — tired. Sleepy. Old.

Now.

Now Murphy can see the soldier all too clearly.

Usually, Jon is at least stooping, talking to kids or making himself smaller. But in the doorway, next to Peter, he _looms,_ huge and menacing and not — Not a friend. (He should have killed them both.) He has to be aware of it. Of his glare. Of his — _presence._ Murphy’s heart rate is spiking. He should stand up, but he doesn’t think his legs will hold him.

That’s when the questions start. “You’re a spy,” says Jon, in clear English. It’s — almost a relief. But not really. “Where are you from?”

“Yes,” he says, real easy. Anything to stave off the torture he knows is coming. “Skaikru. But they were at war with — well, everyone. So our leader — Wanheda — made a deal with the Commander. My service for peace.”

“Skaikru?” Jon clarifies. He has that even voice. Like a monotone, but gentler. Friendlier, maybe. Warmer. Designed to make him relax, like a cup of wine. He doesn’t need the persuasion.

“We — “ Undergrounders get left out of the conversation, it seems. “We used to live in space. In the sky. Then we fell out, and now we’re here.”

Jon says something to Peter, a translation, maybe, and Peter barks out a laugh. “So you are Polis’s ripawar? Their spy?”

“Yes. I work for Polis. For the Commander.”

“What’s your name, then?”

“Murphy.” He doesn’t bother with the other parts.

“Mofi?”

Grounders always drop the R. It’s whatever. “Yes.”

Peter has his bag propped up on his desk. He’s going through the contents. Murphy’s fists clench in his lap. Peter is holding onto his thermos.

“What’s this?” Jon asks, showing him a tiny box.

“It’s bullets and powder,” he says. “For the gun.”

“Gun?” says Jon, his mouth unfamiliar with it.

“The pistol,” he says. Confusion. He makes a sideways L with his fingers, and Peter fishes it out of the bottom of his bag. “It’s a weapon. Don’t — You don’t know how to use it. Don’t touch it.”

Jon relays this back to Peter, and he lovingly strokes the barrel. Murphy inhales sharply. Peter sets it aside, smirking. His pajamas are set aside as well, with less fanfare. Then: the little vials he has. Jon doesn’t even need to ask the question.

“They’re poison,” he says. “Uh, nightshade, I think mostly. I didn’t mix them, I got them from my teacher.”

Peter says something to Jon, and Jon shakes his head, sharp. Peter pockets the vials. “Why did the Commander — it’s still Lexa, right?” Murphy nods, quick. “Why did the Commander send you to kill Peter? What would that accomplish?”

Murphy looks away. Jon gives him a second, and then, sharp. “Mofi.”

“I don’t know,” he says, honest. “I didn’t ask. I just follow orders, I don’t ask questions, that’s not what I’m there for. I know that the Commander has an informant here, but I’ve never talked to or seen them. I don’t even know their name.”

“You’re a soldier,” says Jon, slow. “You follow orders.”

“Yes,” says Murphy. “I don’t ask questions.”

“You’re a terrible spy,” says Jon. It’s — brutally honest. Kind of insulting, but look, the truth always is.

“Yes,” he agrees. “I didn’t want to be one. I ran. But they caught me.”

Jon snorts, maybe. Relays it back to Peter. Peter cracks a smile. Murphy feels — very small. Peter says something to Jon, and Jon shrugs. So Peter says, in his odd accent: “So what I’m getting out of this is that you suck at your job and you want Dropof to take you in because you’re pathetic.”

Murphy would like the ground to swallow him up and maybe kill him while he’s there. Because. Yeah. That sounds about right. “I don’t know what Dropof is,” he says.

“Lost,” supplies Jon. “Lost is the name of this clan.”

Peter glances at him, real sharp. Then touches Jon’s shoulder. A nod, a few words, a glance to Murphy. Peter gathers up the rest of his backpack.

“We’ll keep you until tonight,” says Jon, stiff, too formal. “We’ll deal with this —“ _you, this inconvenience, your death_ “tonight.”

—

Dime takes him to a cell: cot, toilet/sink combo, solar lamp fixed to the ceiling. There’s a switch, so he can turn it on and off, but he’s — been here before. In space, on the ground, it doesn’t really matter.

It’ll be over soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what they say: go home, or make a home
> 
> as always: your comments mean the world to me. talk to me, please.


	12. soft animal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took me a super long time but also it is a very long chapter??? wow
> 
> please enjoy!!

Three of the walls are made of bars. The fourth is concrete, hunched up against the back. There’s someone on guard here, someone he doesn’t know. Someone strong and wiry, a predatory scaly panther, catlike but huge. They have one interaction: Murphy flicks the solar lamp on and off, and then on and off again, and then rapidly between the two stages, because it’s — _something_ to distract him, and he’s bored as hell, and he doesn’t want to think about it. His guard, still frowning, gets up and flicks a different switch on the wall, just where he can’t quite see. Murphy flicks the switch again. The light stays on.

Murphy scowls. He lays down on the cot. He feels. Dead. Like after a night of dreamless sleep. There just isn’t — anything left.

Dime comes to him in the mid-afternoon, carrying a tray. He unlocks a panel at the front of the cell, pushes the tray in. Murphy steps forward to receive it. He’s familiar with this song and dance. Knows all the steps.

It’s grilled cheese with tomato soup. There’s no spoon. He sits down cross-legged on the floor, hunches over the tray, protective. Eats quickly.

“Hey, Doe,” says Dime. He talks the same in English as he does in Trig. Leaves off the ends of syllables, gets real lazy with it. “You got anything you wanna tell me?”

“It’s Murphy,” says Murphy. “Not Doe.”

“Mofi?” asks Dime.

“Yeah,” says Murphy, then realizes that Dime is fishing for information about — anything. His plan, where he came from, what he plans to do, why he revealed himself, why he said no. He doesn’t have any more answers than what he already gave. He swallows the last of the grilled cheese and drinks what’s left of the tomato soup. Wipes his face with his sleeve. Stacks the bowl neatly on the plate, stands up, passes it back through the panel. “This was good,” he says. “Thanks.”

Dime regards him with pity, maybe. Or disbelief. “I’ll be back in the evening,” he says. “Don’t give Nahuel any trouble, now.”

“I’ll be good,” Murphy promises.

—

Peter is still pacing. They haven’t really come to a decision yet. “So you won’t accept feeding him his own poison.”

“You know it’s out,” says Jon, tired. “I think he deserves, at best, a second chance. As lukotwar, if he fails at this — and he said he intends to, whether we believe him or not — they will kill him. So he can’t go back again, and he didn’t really sound like that was his home. And this is — the Lost People. So this could be —“

“Yes,” says Peter, cutting him off. “I know. You go home, or you make a home. You want to give him a place here.”

“Yes,” says Jon, final.

Dime knocks on the door, tray held in one hand. “Boss?” he asks. “You made a decision yet? His food’s getting cold.”

Peter glances to Jon, real quick, calculations. “Come back in half an hour, Dime. We’ll be done by then.”

Dime nods, disappears. “He needs someone to keep an eye on him,” says Peter, real thoughtful.

“Yeah?” Jon says, wary.

Peter stills, takes a step closer to Jon. “You know what they say,” he says, too soft, too close. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Jon is unimpressed. “You trying to tell me something, Pete?”

Peter takes his space back. “So we’ll keep him on a short leash. We always need another mule for the generator."

Jon kind of shrugs one shoulder. “Always need more people in the generator room. You trust him around our power supply?”

“Not alone. If you’re not watching him, someone else will be.”

 _If you’re not —_ hang on. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t — I can’t — What about Rose?”

Peter smirks. It’s entirely too pleased of an expression. “You have an extra room,” he points out. “He gets along with Rose. They sign together. We always need more people in the generator room.”

“I —“

Peter levels with him. “So we should poison him with his own poison.”

Jon sighs. “I’ll take him in.”

—

Murphy’s curled up on the cot, trying to sleep, not really succeeding. Dime slams something against the bars when he comes back, like a shock baton.He startles into action, stands up, feels like he’s in the sky box again and that’s the wake-up call coming for him. Stands, rifles through his memory for contraband. There’s nothing but his — It’s just Dime.

Dime is unlocking the panel. There’s mashed potatoes on the tray, gravy. Vegetables. No meat. It’s cold. “You got a time for death yet?”

“Not my call, Doe. Eat.”

Murphy picks at it. There is a spoon this time. He eats most of the vegetables with his fingers, except for the little rolly green ones. The peas. They smash too easily. He gives the tray back without finising it. He’s starting to feel sick again.

Dime frowns, but he takes the tray. He comes back about twenty minutes later. “Looks like we’re gonna keep you overnight,” he says. “You need anything?”

“Shower,” says Murphy, instantly. He smells like fear and stale sweat, and it just makes him ashamed.

“You want your elephant?” Dime asks.

Murphy looks away. “…Yes,” he says after a long moment.

Dime makes it happen.

—

It’s a process, getting the room ready. Dime comes by to help, even though Peter promised he would — Jon doesn’t really expect him to show up. Rose has been told everything, of course: she’s got a right to know why a sundweller is taking up residence in her house. She’s bouncing up and down now while Dime helps Jon pull out the extra desk in the spare room, because he had been using it as a kind of office-y space, stacked books and papers and tiny war figurines. Together, they carry in furniture from the dorms; a little table and chair, a short dresser, a twin bed with new sheets, a nightstand and the kid’s old solar lamp set on top. “You get his soft animal from the dorm?” he asks Dime, as he slots together the bedframe.

“Gave it to him in the cell,” says Dime. “He asked for it.”

“For his elephant?”

“Yeah,” says Dime. “Couldn’t get him a shower, but I could do that much.”

Jon swallows. “What’s left from his bag?” he asks.

Dime retrieves Murphy’s bag from where he’d set it down on the table. “He’s got the thermos, looks like — washed it out, Cook says there’s nothing in the lining or anything, went through the big dishwasher fine — the two sets of pajamas he was given in Medical, and a necklace with a shell on it. And then the vials of poison, and the knives, and his — weapon.” Dime makes an L-shape with his fingers, to indicate a gun. Jon nods.

They shake out the sets of pajamas together, and Rose rolls up the socks into balls before they put them in the drawer of the dresser. Jon sets the thermos on the nightstand. Folds up two quilts from the linen closet onto the bed, adds a false plant to the table for some color. The room still looks — empty. Kind of sterile. Jon locks the knives and the gun in his cabinet, checks around for anything else sharp. Rose hands him a pair of scissors, silent. He gives her a second’s worth of smile, and tucks them in the cabinet as well. He turns, and Dime hands him all of the sewing needles taken carefully from his kit, their meat tenderizer, and the small set of clippers that Jon uses to cut his and Rose’s nails with. He shifts his eyes to Dime, skeptical.

“Better safe than sorry,” says Dime, shrugging.

Jon sighs, and sets it on top of the sewing needles. “Get the cleaning stuff from under the sink,” he says. “The lye, too.” Dime retrieves them, and the bottles are shoved in. There’s not a lot of space left. Jon locks it, tucks the key into his pocket. “Alright,” he says. “Are you ready?” to Dime.

“Yeah,” says Dime, real easy.

“Me too,” says Rose.

“Gonna have to wait a bit, kiddo,” Jon says, dropping to a crouch to talk to her — if not eye-to-eye, then at least a little on-level. “We have to bring the puppy home from the pound first, alright?”

Rose frowns. “I don’t know what that means,” she says.

“It’s an expression,” says Jon. “Be back in about ten minutes, Rosie.”

—

He wakes in the morning still clutching his elephant in one hand, to Dime switching the light back on. Jon, huge and menacing, walks behind him. Murphy scrambles out of bed. He sets the elephant back on the cot, careful. Dime takes a step back.

Murphy steps out of the cell. Keeps his breathing even. Steady. Steady. Dime touches his shoulder. He flinches, sudden, takes a step away. Dime’s fingers touch the string around his neck, pulls his dorm key off his neck. Don’t — _don’t —_

Murphy snarls. His fists clench. Jon sets a heavy arm around his shoulders. “Easy, Mofi.”

He tries to shrug Jon off, but he keeps steady, like Murphy wanted to, like he meant to. Better to go out calm and even, cool and dead, not begging in the airlock chamber for help that doesn’t come.

“Easy,” Jon says again. They’re walking down the hallway together. Dime is still nearby. Murphy can’t decide if he’s there as muscle — Jon is so much bigger, stronger, got a handle on him already — or as comfort, a familiar presence. “You’re gonna stay with me for awhile, alright?”

“How long?” he asks, voice hard. It’s like coughing up rocks.

“However long you need to,” says Jon, which doesn’t make any sense.

“No,” he says. “I mean. How long until my execution.”

Jon stops walking. Dime comes up short behind him. Jon takes his arm off Murphy’s shoulders, turns to face him, crouches a little, so they can see eye-to-eye. “Listen,” says Jon, clear. “You’re not going to be executed. But you’re not off the hook yet, alright?”

“I don’t —?”

“You’re going to be shadowing me for a while. I’ve got a spare room in my apartment. I’ll keep an eye on you, but you’re not — You’re not being exiled, and you’re not being executed. Alright?”

No? Jon is huge and reminds him of Bellamy and he doesn’t need watching? “Why can’t I stay with Dime?” he asks.

Dime makes a sound behind him, maybe a laugh. “Already got a roomie, Doe,” he says.

“It’s Murphy.”

“Got it, Doe.”

—

Jon’s — apartment? is both smaller and larger than he expected. Dime takes off his shoes when they step inside and Murphy glances to Jon and follows suit, pressing his toes to the heels of his boots and raising his feet. By the door, then, are really big shoes — Jon’s, the steel-toed work boots that Dime just took off, his, and then, curiously, very small flat shoes — like ballet slippers, but for a child. Murphy isn’t sure, but he thinks one of his hands might be larger than both of them combined. The entryway leads out into the living room; an overstuffed chair, a big couch, two small tables, and a little braided rug on top of the wooden floor. A tall, commanding bookshelf, stuffed to the brim with books of all colors and shapes and sizes. Murphy wasn’t even really aware that Grounders had a written language, that they knew how to read. Maybe it’s different with Undergrounders.

To the left of the living room, there’s a kitchenette: nothing like what they have in the mess hall, but a personal kitchen, for making meals for three people, not three hundred. A short stove, a range with a teakettle and lights above it, an ice box and some counter space. There are drawings on the ice box, held up with magnets, but from here all Murphy can see are bright colors and vague shapes. And then the table, to the side of it; solid wood, with four chairs around it, made of the same wood, and each with a mismatched cushion. Red, yellow, blue, orangeish. To the left, three closed doors; to the right, one closed door.

They all stand awkwardly in the living room for several seconds, Murphy with his hands behind him because the soft pajama pants he borrowed don’t have pockets, Dime looking with interest at the drawings on the ice box, Jon tall and tired already. Until one of the closed doors on the left sides opens. A tiny face peeks out, and then the door opens wider, revealing a child’s hands and face and — It’s Rose.

“What are you doing here?” asks Murphy, surprised and confused and, What. Signs it again, _what here?_ And Rose just rolls her eyes.

“Rose lives here,” says Jon slowly.

“What,” says Murphy, stupidly. Rose says something to Jon, and he says something deeper and sterner back.

“Rose is my kid,” says Jon, because obviously, of course. Dime translates, behind him, into Trigedasleng.

“Where’s her mom?”

Jon just stares at him. Very slowly, he says “Rose and I are not related.”

“But she’s your —“

“Sometimes family is not made of blood,” says Jon, and jeez, isn’t that eerie. Murphy guesses, kind of, on his second thought, in his hindsight, that they don’t really look very much alike: Rose has facial scars like Ontari does, from Ice Nation: Jon doesn’t. They’re not even really the same color; Rose is several shades darker than Jon, a crispier version of his toasted skin.

“Branwoda,” Rose mumbles.

Dime kind of smirks, and says something in Trigedasleng to Rose, who nods and disappears back into what Murphy assumes is her bedroom, emerges seconds later with a slingshot tucked into her pants and a handful of stones. They leave together, although Dime touches Murphy’s shoulder on the way out: not a threat, a comfort, a reassurance. Hey. It’s gonna be okay.

He still flinches.

Jon passes a hand over his face, takes a deep breath. “Mofi,” he says, all business.

“Yessir,” says Murphy. The last person he called _sir_ was Pike. Or maybe Bellamy. Creepy.

“Just ‘Jon’ is fine,” says Jon. “Your curfew is an hour after your second shift ends. You’ll eat here, not in the mess hall. I don’t know how you stayed lukotwar so long without apparently knowing Trigedasleng, but you’re going to learn it.” Jon strides forward, opens the last door on the left-hand side of the hall, reveals a bedroom smaller than his dorm room but bigger than his cell, with a bed and a table and a dresser all crammed inside. “Lastly, you’re going to stay in sight of me at all times, so that means that the door stays open, please. Any questions?”

“What about the bathroom?” He doesn’t really have any problems with pissing in front of other people, but…

Jon shoulders open the middle door. “We’ve got a bathtub and a shower. Only cold water for now, the water heater’s still kind of on the fritz this far down.”

“I mean,” says Murphy. This is dumb but it’s also important. “Does that door have to stay open?”

Jon sighs. He pulls the door forward but doesn’t shut it all the way, so you can’t really see in, except that the light is still on and that they have a sink.

“Okay,” says Murphy. Then, “I usually take showers in Medical.”

“Perfectly good shower here, Mofi,” says Jon, real mild.

“You just said that it’s only cold water.”

“Water heater’s gonna get _fixed,_ Mofi.”

“I just —“

There’s a knock at the front door. Jon sighs and goes to open it: Murphy follows him without being told.

It’s Peter.

Murphy feels his blood run cold.

Peter gives a little wave, jaunty, and says “Just checking in to see how the new roommate situation is going,” he says. Holds out the elephant that Murphy had left in the cell. “Brought him this!”

Jon grabs the elephant out of Peter’s hand. “Thanks,” he says, but he does not sound sincere. “Now go away.” Then slams the door. Murphy startles back.

Jesus. He’s all jumpy. Almost getting executed does that to you, apparently.

Jon holds the elephant out to him. Murphy takes it, too cautious. There’s — an expression on Jon’s face that makes him wary, uncomfortable. Like pity, but worse. Like he’s used to it. “They’re called soft animals,” says Jon. “Sof bis. Repeat it.”

“Sof bis,” says Murphy. He hugs the elephant, with its long nose and big ears, feels its velvet. A comfort.

“Do you have a name for it?” Jon asks, unexpectedly gentle.

“What?”

“Sometimes kids… name their soft animals. Does your elephant have a name?”

He has not even started to think about it. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Alright,” says Jon. “Well, I’ll let you get settled in for now. After lunch I’ll take you down to second shift.”

Murphy nods, weirdly numb, and stumbles to his new room. Leaves the door open all the way, even though it feels wrong. Not as wrong as it feels to not have his gun or a knife under his pillow, but he burrows under the covers just the same, tugs the elephant underneath him and — just tries to _breathe._ To shove all the thoughts out of his head and think of nothing. Ruth taught him how.

He’s not really asleep when Jon knocks on his doorframe for lunch, but he’s not really _awake,_ either. Just empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dime has a southern accent
> 
> murphy you have terrible table manners and no concept of scale
> 
> SHOUTOUT TO THE DOUBLE TITLE DROP
> 
> translation:  
> rose: he’s still dumb  
> jon: be nice, rose. he lives here now too.
> 
> branwoda - fool  
> sof bis - soft animal (obviously)
> 
> okay that's all for now! please comment i need that sweet sweet external validation. even if you are reading ages from now! they will still make my day. thanks for reading!!!


	13. it's a sandwich

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bunch of stuff happened in my life and i'm very stressed! no word on when anything will be updated. please leave me nice comments because they're great motivation.

Jon taps on his doorframe and he sits up, throws off the covers. Meets Jon in the kitchen. There’s a plate already set out for him, some kind of sandwich, and he sits after Jon has. Jon pours two glasses of water. Jon’s eating the same thing.

(So, probably not his own poison fed to him in the form of a sandwich, right? Right?) Murphy fiddles with it for a moment, and Jon is just staring at him, so he finally digs in. The bread is the brown rye stuff that Cook has been making recently. God, it seems like years since he was in the kitchen, but really it’s just been — two days. Brown crusty rye and some kind of red sliced fruit and a white slice of something. And a leaf of lettuce. It’s good, he guesses. He finishes the first half and then finally swallows some water.

Jon is just staring at him. He’s finished his own sandwich, got his arms crossed, lookin’ all suspicious and annoyed. Murphy swallows. He takes apart the second half: the squishy red fruit, white mystery slice, lettuce, bread. “What is this?” he asks.

“It’s a sandwich,” says Jon.

“Thanks,” snaps Murphy. “What is it _called,_ I mean. In Trig."

Jon blinks several times. “Wishtous,” he says.

“Wishtous,” repeats Murphy, carefully. “And what’s inside it?”

Jon points. “Tomto,” he says. The squishy red fruit. “Provalone,” the white mystery slice. “Lets,” the lettuce. “Rye, tous. Repeat it.”

“Tomto,” says Murphy, and eats the tomato. “Provalone.” It’s weirder alone, without the other flavors. “Lets,” on the lettuce, the most boring food in space and still boring on the ground. Lastly, the bread: “Rye, tous. Good?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” says Jon. Murphy swallows. “Drink some water. Woda.”

Murphy drinks some water. “Woda,” he agrees. He feels dumb. He’s not gonna remember any of this.

“Good,” says Jon. “Bring your thermos, I’ll take you to second shift.”

Murphy goes back to the bedroom. Gets his thermos. Dreads a little. Dreads a lot. Follows Jon anyway.

—

Jon takes him down for flights, across a cavern, and then up one more set of stairs. There’s a door, unusually large, that Jon pushes open and there’s suddenly — the huge whoosh of air, and the room has no ceiling, and he feels a little like he did after they first landed, no breath in him, sucked up by the emptiness above him. Jon’s got a hand across his shoulders. “It’s not outside,” he says, very low, in Murphy’s ear. “Look. There’s the ceiling, way up there. This is where we generate the power that we use to cook, to keep our heaters and lights going, to keep everything running smoothly. Take a deep breath. This is your second shift.”

Murphy’s grip tightens on his thermos. “I don’t — understand —“

“You’re going to help run the generator. See that big tube? That’s where our power goes through. It runs off human energy — we have a technician, that’s Sparky, right now —“ a skinny little dude wearing those glasses things on his face that Jaha had sometimes, typing on a console and looking up every so often towards the — wheel? “— and Cole is running it.” The girl on the wheel, hair long, pulled back, sweating, damp t-shirt. She’s got something around her wrist, black with a black square on it. Suspicious. “You’re gonna be replacing Cole on the wheel. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Murphy. There isn’t — another choice. _I’ll be good._ Jon takes him around to the side of the desk, speaks quickly in Trigedasleng to Sparky, who nods very seriously, presses some buttons, and the wheel slows down long enough for Cole to stop running. Cole hops off, greets Murphy warmly. Murphy just kind of raises a hand numbly.

Cole grips him by the wrist — _hey! —_ and attaches the bracelet thing to his wrist. The black square lights up, shows a picture of a heart, and then some numbers that don’t make sense to him. He tugs his wrist out of her grip, holds it close to his chest, babying it. He doesn’t like it when people just — touch him. He steps up to the wheel. Sparky gives him a signal. Jon gives him a thumbs up. He starts running.

—

It is not — all bad. It is very bad. But not all of it is bad. The running part is bad. The running on a _wheel,_ specifically, is bad. In one place, forever, the ground moving underneath him but he’s not going anywhere. Useless. Stuck. But Sparky doesn’t make him run all the time. Every time the little screen on his wrist beeps, Sparky makes him get down, take some breaths, drink some water. Sparky even deomnstrates some stretches he can do but Murphy just stares at him and ignores the advice.

Jon comes back for him at some point, after he has accepted that he will never stop running and the only way out is the sweet release of death, and Murphy has never been more glad to see him.Sparky helps him off the wheel, and his legs feel all wobbly, real unsteady. Sparky tugs the heart monitor off his wrist and hands it off to the next person. “How’d it go?” asks Jon.

Murphy kind of falls into him. “Nnn,” he says. Jon just laughs at him.

—

They get back to the apartment and Murphy remembers almost none of the journey there. Murphy makes a bee-line for the bedroom, but Jon catches him by the back of his shirt. “Shower, kid,” he says.

Murphy mumbles through a Ruth Special but makes his way to the bathroom. Strips, stands in the shower for a while before Jon returns with a stack of clothes — his pajamas! — and a towel and reaches across to turn the water on for him and yank the shower curtain closed. The pipes squeal as the water comes through them. Sprays him straight in the face, and he swears a louder Ruth Special, and it’s freezing and he’s going to _die._ He’s out within five minutes, wraps himself in the towel — surprisingly fluffy — and gets into his soft pajamas. They smell — freshly laundered. He’s more awake now but still exhausted, and bed still seems like a great idea.

There’s a short little space heater plugged in in his bedroom, warming up the room quite nicely. He doesn’t think much about how it got there, just gets under the covers and burrows his way in. Worries for a second about the elephant, finds him sitting discarded next to the bed and brings him up. He’s asleep before he knows what hit him.

—

He wakes up because he’s starving. He wanders out into the living room, where Rose is doing something complicated on the low table with tiny blocks and a raccoon stuffed animal, who is either the mayor or terrorizing the town. “What time is it?” he asks. When did Rose get home? How long has he been out?

“Eight bells,” says Jon, which, honestly, means nothing at all to him. Except that he missed dinner. His stomach makes a very pointed Noise. “Your supper’s in the oven. Should still be warm.”

 _What._ “What.”

“It’s cornbread and meatloaf with gravy,” says Jon. “And vegetables. You need protein as well as vitamins.” At least he didn’t repeat himself.

Murphy goes poking around for it. The oven is still warm, but cool enough to the touch. He pulls out the covered plate inside. Sets it on the kitchen table. Rummages around for a fork. (There’s no knives in any of the drawers. Murphy tries to tell himself that’s normal.) Sits down, digs in. He doesn’t taste any of it; goes down too quickly. Glances up a couple times: Jon’s always got an eye on him. Whatever. It’s just — it is what it is.

He rinses his plate in the sink and then sets it aside, leans up against the counter and watches Jon and Rose do their thing. Calculates his next move. He doesn’t really have any big plans, here. No goal. Get trusted, eventually. Don’t get killed. Short-term, probably go back to bed, or at least lay down. He doesn’t really have anything to do. He heads for his bedroom.

“Mofi,” calls Jon, light. “Come out and sit with us.”

“Alright,” says Murphy, from the bedroom.

There’s a brief smattering of conversation between Jon and Rose, and then — “And bring your elephant. Rose wants to meet him.”

Murphy finds him — it— naw, him — underneath the pillow. Comes back to the living room, kneels awkwardly by the table. Sets the elephant next to the tiny blocks. “Hey,” he says, dumb.

Rose says something, and Jon translates for her. “This is Raccoon. He’s a raccoon. Jon said I had to name him.”

“This is Elephant,” says Murphy. “Same?”

Rose grins at him. Murphy almost smiles back.

—

Murphy flips through the books on the bookshelf while Jon plays the checkers game with Rose. He pulls down some of the big, heavy ones with the colorful outsides first: _Latitudes and Longitudes of the World_ and _Encyclopedia of Animals._ He browses them: one is full of maps, of oceans and lands of a long-ago earth. Kind of looks like what they can see from space, but not really. He spends a long time on that one, comparing it to his memories, thinking about all the countries that lived and died a hundred years ago, and he can’t even bother to remember their names. He spends long enough that Rose and Jon finish playing checkers and Rose disappears for several minutes, reappearing with clay cups and clay plates.

He looks up and watches her for a few seconds, and then opens Encyclopedia of Animals. Rose sets a clay cup in front of him, and then fills it with water from the kettle a few seconds later. He dips a finger into it. It’s not even warm. Jon has taken out a knife — _how the fuck did he miss that?? —_ and is busy whittling away at a chunk of wood, making something, like Finn might have out of metal. Rose doesn’t give him a cup.

The encyclopedia of animals is boring text, but there’s pictures inside, colorful and vibrant, if a little faded. There’s lions, which are like big cats with hair all over their faces, not fur. There’s bears, big blobby creatures with snouts and fearsome teeth. There’s the regular kind of deer, the one with the one face, and the little white tail that goes up if there’s danger. He’d killed plenty of those with Bellamy, and even more with Emori. The two-faced kind is harder to catch, because it can see in both directions at once. And Emori never seemed to want to kill those. There’s even a big gray thing that looks like Elephant, except with wrinkled skin and huge, huge, huge. Bigger than Jon, probably. The description underneath says: _Elephants are a heavy plant-eating mammal with a prehensile trunk, long curved ivory tusks, and large ears, native to Africa and southern Asia. It is the largest living land animal._ Huh. Not living anymore. He looks up to compare to his Elephant, but he’s gone.

Murphy sits up. Rose has him by the trunk in one hand, Raccoon in the other, carrying them both off to her room. “Rose?” he says, panicked, her name strange under his tongue.

Jon looks up then, too, and says something sharp, sharp enough that Rose doubles back and stands with her shoulders slouched in front of the couch. Jon repeats his sharp words, and Rose rolls her eyes, heads away again. Murphy’s fists clench.

_Don’t. Don’t. He doesn’t like that, he doesn’t like being dragged by his trunk, don’t take him from me —_

Jon puts him on the ground before he even knows what happened. Knee against his spine, grinding it in. The breath is knocked out of his lungs. “Hey,” says Jon, real calm. “You wanna fuck up this bad your first night?” he asks.

Murphy wheezes, unable to make any real coherent sound. He doesn’t push himself up. Jon takes the knee off his back. Murphy lays there, panting, for several seconds, while Jon talks to Rose and Rose stomps off out of his line of sight. A door slams. Murphy sits up, looks over Jon, real wary. The knife has been transferred to his belt. Murphy — can’t stop staring at it.

He doesn’t _think_ Jon will stab him, but shallow cuts can hurt just as much. Worse, if he’s expected to stay still for them. He raises his hands, real careful. Sign: _I don’t mean any harm._ Jon looks to him, confused, follows the track of his eyes, and removes the knife from his belt — _please, please —_ and sticks it on the wall, above his own head, far above Murphy’s own reach. Murphy breathes a little easier.

“Do you know why that was wrong?” asks Jon.

“She took my —“

“We don’t hit people in this house. You have a problem, you talk it out. She’s smaller than you, Mofi. Be better.”

 _We don’t hit people in this house._ Not even the assasain kid you were forced to take in? “I won’t hit Rose,” he says, a promise. Considers making a bargain for it: _I won’t hit Rose. Don’t hit me. I’m smaller than you._ Discards it in favor of taking another slow breath. It’s the opposite of what Ruth would say. That’s not a child, that’s a soldier. You hit them, or they’re gonna hit you, and they’re better at it than you are.

“Good,” says Jon, maybe a little warmer. “Glad to hear it. Let’s get you to bed; that’s certainly been enough excitement for one night.”

He helps Murphy to his feet — he’s not even injured, just winded — and herds him into his bedroom. Murphy sits down on the bed and watches as Jon collects Elephant from the couch. Feels his heart catch in his throat. Jon comes back to the bedroom and drops Elephant onto his bed beside him. “Door stays open,” reminds Jon gruffly. “Turn off your solar lamp when you’re ready to go to sleep.”

Murphy nods, numb, suddenly exhausted again, and kicks off his socks. Gets under the covers. Snuggles Elephant close to his chest. Watches Jon putter around the living room for awhile. Safe? Safe? Still not sure. Safe enough, or maybe tired enough, to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi the latitudes and longitudes of the world was just a dumb excuse to put my name in this story
> 
> hoping that i have to come up with less trigedasleng in the future
> 
> it’s provolone but in trig it’s provalone
> 
> THE GENERATOR IS THE WARP CORE ROOM FROM THE U.S.S VOYAGER I’M NOT CREATIVE also i don’t know anything about science don’t talk to me i write for $0
> 
> the heart monitor is just an apple watch hooked up to a wireless whatever don't look at me
> 
> my life is a Mess right now, if you're reading and enjoying this, please let me know. thanks.


	14. i won't drink it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAAAAR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which murphy is unnecessarily poetic about his dreams and teaches a child how to swear
> 
> italics in conversation are trig and idk how i'm gonna deal with the trig formatting from here on out so , uh,,,,, yeah

Murphy dreams of being in the desert again, and everything is dry and cold and Jaha keeps him close because he is the Favorite Son, and his mouth tastes like blood. His mouth tastes like copper and raw fear and uncertainty of the darkness beyond. There’s a gun in his hand. There’s a knife in his hand. He is running, there is someone chasing him, Prosper or the bounty hunters in the woods and he is ready for it this time, lashes out and hits something and it’s wet all over his hand, and the copper gets sharper and he —

He wakes up. There is blood all over his hands. Someone is holding onto him. The solar lamp by his bed is on. His voice is ice and glass shards and he thrashes and there’s no give and there’s blood all over his hands — and it’s Jon and there’s blood on his face and — Christ. He fucked up.

Cold wash of fear. _You wanna fuck up this bad your first night?_ “Don’t hit me,” he says, and his voice is cracked all through, sleep-rough and too high. “I’m smaller than you.” No response. Jon’s arms loosen around him, let him go. Please, please — “Breja — please, _breja —“_

Jon gets a hankerchief from somewhere and wipes at his still-bleeding nose. “Do you want a glass of water?” he asks.

“Your _face —“_ says Murphy, numb.

“It’s had worse,” says Jon, very even. “There’s a type of tea,” he says. “It prevents nightmares. Dreamless sleep. I could make you some.”

“No,” says Murphy, sharp. Jon tries to continue, and Murphy talks over him. “I said _no._ I don’t want it. I won’t drink it.”

Jon shuts his mouth and waits until Murphy is done. “Alright,” he says. “That’s fine.”

That’s the point where Ryfe would push him up against something and force it, still steaming, down his throat. Ruth just waits, until Murphy says _okay, I’ll take it, give it to me._ Murphy breathes, in, out, slow, tries to break himself out of it, out of the anxiety curled up in his stomach. Jon doesn’t move.

“What did you dream about?” Jon asks eventually.

 _Nothing,_ is what he wants to say. _Just a nightmare. It’s fine._ “I killed my father’s killer and I can feel the weight of my hands afterwards and he looked just like you,” says his mouth. Jon stares at him. “And he looked like you in the dream, too. And he woke me up from nightmares. We travelled across the desert together.” He took off his shirt to go to bed. He touches the tattoo at his collarbone. “This one is for him.”

“Should I be worried about that?”

Murphy sucks in a breath. “I just hit you.”

“You were asleep,” says Jon. “And Rose hits harder than you do. It was just a dream, Mofi.”

“Yeah,” says Murphy. “It was just a dream.”

But it felt real, and there is blood on his hands now, and he’s all cold and shivery and his tattoos are itching again.

—

He likes being here. He _does._ He hates doing generator shifts, but there’s always food at the end and Jon’s hand at the nape of his neck, an anchor. He’s gotten shifts in the kitchen now, too: making things with Cook instead of just washing dishes. Tomto zoop. Paneens. Naaaaaaaan bread. Bringing home meals for himself and Jon and Rose. Flipping through the books on Jon’s shelf after, rearranging as he goes.

But — he’s — There’s something under his skin. Something that itches, and burns. Something that settles in the gaping maw of his chest. There’s a day left till his tattoo marks him as unredeemed. He’s been dreaming of the City of Light, of freedom, of Emori. Of being dead and gone from here. Ruth’s disappointment, the torture chamber, Titus’ hand at his throat.

He can’t let it fester anymore, this open wound. He wants to hit someone. Mbege, if he were available. But one of them is dead, and some days he’s not entirely sure which. He wants the — the _contact_ — of fist against flesh, the cut-off cry of pain — hitting and being hit and its _familiarity._

So, yeah, okay. He’s on the rounds with Jon and Jon looks away for like twenty seconds, talking to someone else, and he’s standing too close to this tall guy, and the tall guy says something to him, and he just — he just _snaps._ Fist, flesh, pain, — _good._ What he deserves. He holds his own, too — doesn’t end up on the floor, protects his kidneys, gets a couple nice hits in, till the other guy gets into the flow of it and then Jon is pulling him out by his middle and there’s blood all over his face and his knuckles and he should stop grinning, he really should.

Jon is saying something at him and his blood is thrumming in his head and he feels heady and _good_ and Jon is probably gonna — gonna —

Okay. He’s crying now.

Jon signs: _home. now._ at him and he just nods and lets Jon help him to his feet.

—-

Jon takes the kid back to the apartment, sets him up on the bathroom counter. Pulls out the first aid kit. Kid just stares at him, blank, already gone. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know why you started a brawl with Yen over nothing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you listening to me?”  
  
“I don’t know.”

Jon sighs. “Gonna touch your face now, okay? Wipe away the blood and disinfect it.”

Some awareness, then. “No.” A flicker of the eyes.

“No what?”

“Don’t touch me.”

Okay. He wets the washcloth in the sink, folds it over, and presses it into Mofi’s hand. Pulls the handheld mirror out of the cabinet drawer. “Wash your own face, then. Then we can disinfect.”

“…Yeah?”

“Wash, disinfect, bandage. Face first, then your hands. I thought you were taught how to fight in Polis.”

“I like the pain.”

Christ, kid. “Yeah?”

Mofi dabs at his face with the washcloth, with his bloody knuckles. “Mmm-hmm. It’s like. Contact.”

Yeah? “So you’re telling me that you started a brawl because you were touch-starved.”

“I don’t — what is that?”

“Humans need contact. They need — _connections._ Like how humans need sunlight; they can’t go for long without it. Just the same as needing food and water and sleep.”

Mofi glances up to his face, glances quickly away. “When you put it like that,” he says. “it sounds dumb. But it was fine in my head. And it worked.” Weird, sideways stare. “I’d do it again. He was bigger than me. It wasn’t in the house. I didn’t break any rules.”

“You can’t start fights in the middle of Common,” says Jon, like he is speaking to a child, which is. Not untrue. “We can get you someone to spar with.”

“You don’t even let me near knives,” says Mofi, and there’s the bitter note. “You gonna let me fight someone?”

“I’ll do what I can,” promises Jon. “As long as you don’t start any more fights.”

“Eh,” says Mofi, equally ambivalent. “I’ll do what I can.”

Jon touches his knee, a comfort. Contact. “Stay here,” he says. “I’ll get you an ice pack.”

\--

Jon makes him spend an afternoon babysitting Rose as? punishment? for getting into a scuffle. It’s also possible that Rose is babysitting him. Rose teaches him a dozen more hand-signs and some Trigedasleng. He is not sure how well he learns it.

Jon asks him something in Trigedasleng at dinner that night. He stares at Jon, blank, and then when that gets him no answers, signs to Rose: _what?_ Rose scowls and says “ _We didn’t get to that._ ”

Jon rolls his eyes. “What have you learned?” he asks Murphy.

He kind of pokes at his carrots. “ _Tomorrow I am going to the kitchens to make tomato soup for lunch. We are drying meat for jerky. Then I want to go sparring with the scouts_. _Then I am coming home and I will beat Rose in checkers._ ”

“ _Unlikely,”_ says Rose.

“ _Fuck you,_ ” Murphy responds, good-natured, before remembering that Jon is there. Swallows hard.

“Don’t teach my daughter English swear words,” says Jon, real mild.

“ _Too fucking late,_ ” says Rose. Murphy smothers a grin in a carrot, high-fives Rose from across the table.

Jon sighs.

\--

  
He is not allowed to spar with the rest of the scouts yet, but he can sit on the sidelines, watching. Dime sits near him sometimes, points out things that sparring partners are doing, asks him what he might have done differently. Dime — does not seem disappointed in his answers, which is good, and Dime squeezes his shoulder while he’s walking Murphy home, which is — even better. It’s so dumb, this — _touch-starved_ thing. But Emori touched him like she wanted to, and Ruth touched him as a reward in Polis, when he was getting tattooed or after he had come back from a mission. Felix tried to touch him after he had had a bad dream. So it’s. It’s a thing, he guesses.

He does not beat Rose in checkers. Rose beats him three out of three, and then five out of five, and finally nine out of ten. They move from crouched over the low table to a flat board on the couch, Murphy propped up against Jon, trying to be easy, easy, easy. Jon is warm, and he is cold, and — Jon doesn’t seem to mind. He had kind of gone over some acceptable forms of seeking out contact before he had dropped Murphy off at sparring, and this had been one of them, so it’s fine. It’s fine. Jon has a knife with him, but he’s not likely to turn it on Murphy. Rose is better at him in pretty much everything, but she’s not _dangerous,_ except maybe to his pride.

After the tenth game, Rose puts the board away. “ _It’s not fun winning all the time,_ ” she tells him, and he thinks Jon might laugh a little, because he trembles against Murphy’s back. So Murphy retrieves one of the big books from the bookshelves and reads it without really absorbing anything, just flipping the pages because it’s something to do.

He wakes up all at once when the book falls from the couch onto the floor. He is _cold._ He is disoriented. Jon is still next to him. His arms are crossed, and his head is bent. He is asleep. The knife and wood have been put away. No. They’re on the end table next to him.

He could take the knife. He could stab Jon. Right between his third and fourth rib. Quiet; he’d never see it coming. Sneak out, be careful of the creaking wood. Take the passage up to Peter’s office. Tell him _I didn’t really mean it_ as he —

Stop. Stop. Stop.

He nudges Jon awake. “Jon,” he says, and his voice sounds strange to his own ears. “Jon, I’m going to bed.”

Jon kind of mmfs, cracks an eye open. Then he’s all awake, very alert, sitting up straight. “Mofi?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Murphy. “I’m going to bed, okay?”

“Okay,” says Jon. “Good night. You’ll be okay?”

“Yeah,” says Murphy. And — and — risks it. “Gonna close the door, okay?”

“You think that’ll help you sleep better?” Jon asks.

“It’ll be warmer,” Murphy says, a half-answer. Jon kind of huffs, a laugh.

“Okay,” says Jon. “It’s fine with me. I’ll wake you up in the morning. Don’t forget to turn off your solar lamp.”

“Good night, Jon,” says Murphy. When he’s wriggling under his blankets, he thinks about that a little more. About how his guard had felt safe enough to leave a knife around him. To fall asleep around him. 

Well. It’s mutual. 

In the morning, the first bounty hunter arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor yen, he deserved none of this
> 
> lookat those consent parallels
> 
> my life sucks please say nice things to me on the internet. your comments are literally what kept me writing this story back in 2015 when my life sucked and i was writing ibg, they keep me going now. thank you for your time, your patience, and all these flowers that keep showing up on my doorstep. i live on the second floor. how are they getting there


	15. you're ten, right, enki?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took FOREVER please enjoy it
> 
> warning for self-harm and graphic violence (same stuff that happened when murphy stabbed ryfe, a description of organs that should stay inside your body - it grosses me out to read and to write!)

Felix comes by before first shift, before even Rose has left. Murphy is not quite awake, but he is sitting up and poking at a bowl of oatmeal. He answers the door, and Felix is standing there, looking — well. Looking good.

Felix says something to him, and Murphy yells for Jon. Felix pauses, and switches to slightly stunted English. “Jon said you have an infection on your tattoo,” he says as Jon appears behind him. “I want to heal it.”

 _Yes,_ Murphy signs before he can think twice about it. Glances up at Jon, who nods in approval. _Now?_ Felix nods.

“I have to get dressed,” says Murphy, and darts back to his bedroom. He is still wearing his soft pajama pants and a shirt that was probably once Jon’s but got shrunk down in the wash. He opens the top drawer of his dresser. There — it doesn’t seem like there’s anything suitable. What do you wear to a medical appointment with your local handsome medical assistant? Where you will probably take your shirt off anyway? At least he got less squishy doing all that training in Polis.

He picks a light blue button-up shirt with only one of the buttons missing and a pair of dark blue jeans. That’s. That’s gonna have to be fine. For the first time, he wishes he had a mirror in his room.

This is dumb. He doesn’t care what he looks like. Felix probably won’t even notice. (Felix’s eyes on him after he got out of the shower in Medical. Felix’s hands at his wrists, making eye contact even though Murphy is — Stop.)

He steps out of his bedroom. He walks to Felix, hardly giving a glance back. “Mofi,” says Jon sternly from the kitchen. “Oatmeal.”

Murphy scowls, walks back to the dining room, finishes his oatmeal in three huge swallows and sets the bowl in the sink. “Can I go now?” he asks, knowing he sounds petulant.

Jon reaches out and straightens the collar of his shirt. Murphy squirms away. “Go,” rumbles Jon, and Murphy is out the door past him before he can say anything else, find any other faults.

Felix laughs a little, shuts the door behind him. Murphy feels the heat rising to his cheeks. “Getting along with Mom?” he asks.

“Jon’s fine,” says Murphy, uncomfortable. “’S better than sleeping in Medical.”

“Hey!” says Felix, but he’s laughing. “I have a very nice chair there!”

—

In Medical, Felix makes him sit on the edge of his old bed and take off his shirt. Murphy’s hands shake as he unbuttons it: he has been warned too often against showing them off, lived in fear too long for it to be casual. Felix hisses in sympathy when he takes it off — the top two tattoos, right under his collarbone, for Jaha and Ontari are red and inflamed. They’ve been bothering him for weeks, but it’s not — important. He just scratches the itch until blood blossoms underneath his hands, and he dabs at it and ignores it for later.

“How did this happen?” Felix asks, gathering supplies and setting them on the table by the bed. Murphy makes a noncomittal sound and Felix frowns. “You can’t scratch at new tattoos, they get infected. You have to take care of them.”

“Nobody told me,” says Murphy, bitter.

Felix makes a sound, and touches Murphy’s collarbone with a wet cloth. Murphy flinches hard enough that Felix starts shhhing him, like trying to gain the trust of a wild animal, signs _I don’t mean any harm,_ reflexive. And then he starts talking. “What was your first tattoo?” he asks.

Murphy brings up his ankle, pulls up his pant leg to show off the sun tattoo, his first kill mark. “You were a lukotwar?” asks Felix.

“Yeah,” says Murphy, and it’s. Weird to say that. “But I ran.”

“You must have been very successful,” says Felix. He starts gently dabbing at Murphy’s skin again. “To have so many tattoos.”

“No,” says Murphy, fierce. “No.” But he can stay still for Felix’s touch this time, keep himself steady.

“You have to take care of them,” says Felix, even.

“If I could burn them off,” says Murphy, too strong. “I would.”

“Oh,” says Felix. He touches where a knife-cut went too deep over one line of ink, never healed quite right. “I will talk to Barlow,” he says. “She will do what she can."

It's a name that jars something in the back of his head. He's heard it before, but like hell he can put a name to a face.

"Who's Barlow?"

One corner of Felix's mouth quirks like a fish on a line. "Dropof's healer," he says. "The real one. I am still only a...an..." he falters for a second, looking for a word that doesn't translate easy. "An apprentice," he settles on, after a moment. His gaze drops. He traces the edge of one of Murphy's scars, fingers cool and steady, eyes distant, before he gets back to -- healing. Disinfecting. It hurts. Felix keeps talking, and it's easy to latch onto the words. "She saved me, you know."

Murphy grunts.

"When I was younger, I cut my breasts off. Couldn't stand it any longer. I was in training to be a healer, but it was a mes. My hands weren’t so steady then. So the incisions were -- ragged. uneven. I nearly bled out, and if that didn't get me, the fevers would have. Barlow was passing through." There is a thoughtful pause, and the pain is sharper, with nothing to distract him from it. "When I could stand again, I was banished.” Felix smiles, off-hand and bitter and Murphy has worn that smile too often to not _feel_ it in his gut. “And so we came to Lostkru. You, me, Barlow. Cast-outs. I’m going to bandage this up so that it won’t get infected again, alright?”

“Uh,” says Murphy, having lost the thread of what Felix is doing. “Yeah, alright.”

Felix braces one hand on Murphy’s shoulder, picks up the bandage cloth with the other. There is a sharp crackling sound, and Murphy flinches real hard again, and Felix’s hands drop and there is — there is an announcement coming over a speaker somewhere in this room _._ It’s — “What the fuck,” says Murphy over the Trigedasleng, which is too fast and too unfamiliar.

“Shh,” says Felix, waving a hand near him, and Murphy shuts up. After the Voice stops speaking, Felix takes a deep breath. “We’ve had an intruder break in on an upper level,” he says, translating. “He was looking for you. We have to go kill him.”

“ _What,”_ says Murphy.

“Dropof tradition,” says Felix. “Let’s finish this up and go.”

—

Felix takes him upstairs to the mess hall, his tattoos freshly bandaged and hardly even twinging. Felix touches the inside of his wrist, a silent encouragement. Murphy nods, swallows, and goes to find Jon.

Jon is with the orphans, the ragtag group of children that hang around the crew. He’s kneeling down to talk to Enki, the youngest of the orphans, the mute. Delilah, one of the women who works in the kitchen with him sometimes, is with him. “You think he’s too young?” asks Delilah.

“He’s ten,” says Jon, like that’s an explanation. “You’re ten, right, Enki?”

 _Yes,_ signs Enki back.

“You think you’re ready for this?” Jon asks.

 _Yes,_ signs Enki again.

“He’s old enough to be a warrior,” says Jon to Dellah. “I don’t see why he shouldn’t get a cut.”

Delilah nods, and gives the knife to Enki. Enki clutches it in one tiny hand, small and fierce and ready to —

_What is going on?_

Jon stands up. “Jon,” says Murphy quietly. “What is —“

“Heyo, Mofi,” says Jon, real easy.

“Where’s Rose?” asks Murphy, because she’s not among the group of children that have gathered here.

“Out with Dime, up topside.” says Jon. “Learning how to be heir. Couldn’t have heard the announcement. A runner’s been sent. She’ll be here, Mofi.”

Okay. Um. That doesn’t really help a lot. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he admits. Holds onto some hope that Jon will make this better, make it make _sense_ somehow.

“Bounty hunter came calling for you,” he says. That _does not_ make it better. “We’re killing him and sending his body back to where he came from.”

“To Polis,” says Murphy, numb.

“Yes,” says Jon. “Are you ready?”

Murphy just stares up at him, unable to form anything coherent. Jon remembers something, hands Murphy one of the knives he was giving to the orphans. Murphy grips onto it tight, stares at it. Sticks close to Jon as a man is brought out into the mess hall, hands tied above his head, struggling and gagged. Murphy does not recognize him, but it reminds him of Finn. Death by a thousand cuts. A message, sent back to Polis, no words needed.

Murphy isn’t really sure that this is not a dream. He watches, slack-jawed, as Peter steps forward, says something important leaderly. Jon translates for him, but Murphy hears none of it, watching as Peter’s knife cuts into flesh and blood drips. And then it becomes an orderly process, the kru lined up in groups, going one by one. “You’ll take the last cut,” says Jon, quietly. “You get the kill.”

Rose steps into place next to him. Jon touches Murphy’s shoulder, and he shudders, hard. “Mofi,” says Jon, firm. “You kill the past, so that the future can be born.”

Murphy swallows. Rose’s small hand slips into his free one. “Okay,” says Murphy. “Okay okay okay okay. Yeah. Okay.” And he closes his eyes through the rest of it, holds the knife Jon gave him with white knuckles. Opens them again when the man is bleeding out, no longer grunting much through his gag, head hanging limply from his neck. Jon touches Murphy’s shoulder, and Murphy steps forward. Rose’s hand loosens, lets go, and he can hardly bear it. Goes for a rough, ragged cut into the man’s belly, stomach lining and intestines and organs Murphy doesn’t even know the name of. Something roils in his gut, and Jon pulls him back.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” says Murphy.

Jon takes the knife from his limp fingers, helps him to sit at one of the tables. “It’s okay,” says Jon. “You’re safe. It’s over.”

Murphy shakes. “Okay,” he says again. “Okay.”

“I’ve got your thermos,” says Jon. “Take a drink, okay?”

Murphy lets Jon put the thermos into his hands, tips it back into his mouth. Nothing feels like anything. Jon speaks quiet words to Rose, and she heads out again, back to hair stuff or whatever.

“We’ll go home and make some tea, alright?” says Jon.

Murphy thinks that maybe Jon is worried about him. It’s such a foreign concept that he immediately shies away from it. “Okay,” he says finally.

—

It is over. The man is dead. Kill the past, so that your future can be born. It is over, it is over, it is over. Jon goes to put the kettle on for tea: Murphy lets himself into the bathroom and unbuttons his shirt to touch the bandage that Felix had so carefully fastened to him. It — itches. He peels up the sticky surface, looks at the inflamed skin underneath.

He has blood on his skin. He has blood thrumming in his ears. He has given up his mission. He is unredeemed. He killed a man. More will come for him. He is _marked_ like this, as a traitor, as a lukotwar, as a failure. He will be this way still even after the infection heals. It is more than _scars:_ these are intentional: patterns and symbols that mark him as property of Polis — they are as dangerous to him as they are to any place he chooses to call home.

The kettle whistles: tea’s done.

He wants _out._ He wants them _off._ He leaves the bandage on the bathroom counter. He steps out of the bathroom. Jon is distracted. By the time he isn’t, Murphy has already pulled the wood-carving knife from the little table next to the sofa, in the drawer. Jon seizes his wrist before Murphy can draw much blood, before he can carve out the meat of his shoulder, the skin off his chest, to every splotch of ink he had allowed someone else to give him. He fights, but Jon slams his hand down on the table until Murphy loses his grip. He scrambles for the knife, but Jon drags Murphy down to the floor with him. Jon gets both arms around Murphy and holds on tight, and there is nothing Murphy can do about it except exhaust himself trying to get free.

“Hey,” says Jon in his ear, sharp and insistent. “Hey. It’s all right.”

It had never been all right. It had come close in fleeting moments, in stolen moments with Felix, laughing til he could hardly breathe with Rose, with Dime’s gentle touches — but it had always been overshadowed by this awful truth.

Murphy sucks in a breath. Everything is vibrating inside his head. “Why can’t you just let me do it?”

“I’m not letting you hurt yourself, Mofi.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not gonna help anything, Mofi. I know it’s bad, but it won’t be this way forever, alright?”

“It’s been this way for as long as I can remember,” says Murphy, too exhausted to lie anymore. “It’s always my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” says Jon, sharp. The disappointment cuts Murphy deeper than expected. “You’re safe now. We can talk about it. You don’t have to hurt yourself, and you don’t have to do it with a knife.”

Murphy doesn’t say much of anything, but he stops struggling and lets Jon bring a mug of tea to him. Wraps his hands around the mug. Lets Jon talk to him. Listens, for once in his goddamn life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> words said most during the creating of this chapter: murphy you IDIOT
> 
> fiya - i'm sorry
> 
> hey! please leave me comments. i've had a Time and i Thrive on your feedback. kudos are good too. <3


	16. give moss my best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lexa/candles is actually my main OTP

After the horse comes back, complete with rider but still alone, Lexa hesitates. When the message arrives from her still-loyal spy in Dropof, she knows what she has to do. She waits until after Clarke is asleep, when darkness has fallen over Polis and the candles have been snuffed out, to strike across the courtyard to the barracks. She finds Prosper and Moss’s apartment towards the end of the block; a candle still burns inside, so at least one of them is awake.

Prosper answers the door, sleep-ruffled and wearing his night clothes already. “What can I do for you, Commander?” he asks, and does not invite her in.

She ignores that, and steps inside of his sanctuary anyway. “A message came from our spy in Dropof,” she says.

“Yes?” he asks, politely curious. “Did it override the one sent with the dead man? Do you trust this spy more than you trust the one you picked yourself?” Casually caustic. Careful, Prosper. A different Commander might take offense.

“It said that our lukotwar is there,” Lexa presses on. “That he could not finish the job he was sent to do. I would like you to go there yourself, and bring him back, alive or dead. To complete the job he was sent to do, if you can.”

“Alive or dead?” Prosper asks. He’s interested now. “I would kill him, if it meant you would stop wasting your time on him.”

“Then go,” says Lexa. “Take what you need and go in the morning. Give Moss my best.”

“Always,” says her lieutenant, giving her a hint of his knife-smile, his sharpest look, and she lets herself back out.

—

There had been an emergency in one of the upper floors that morning, and Jon had woken him and asked roughly if he could help. He can make himself useful, so he goes. There had been a cave-in in a mostly unused storage room, so he spends the morning moving rubble and dust away from vents, going as far as shoulder-deep into a pipeline to clear the passageway until they give him the all-clear from the surface. He is dusty and he hurts when he emerges, but Jon favors him with a smile and “You did a good job, Mofi,” so it’s worth it. From there, they take a stop in Peter’s office, where Peter is already talking to someone else — Murphy ducks into the attached bathroom to wash his face. When he emerges, clean and clear, the other person turns to see who has entered the room, and —

It is Prosper. His eyes reach Murphy first, narrow, and Murphy feels a a thrill of fear — but then Prosper looks over to Jon, and — something very strange happens.

Prosper straightens up, stands at attention. Salutes with precise, practiced movements — a respectful gesture, not sarcastic. Murphy’s never seen this look on him. “Captain,” he says, and gives a nod.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” says Jon. Prosper relaxes. “What’s your report?”

“Sir,” says Prosper. “I was sent by the Commander to retrieve the Polis lukotwar, alive or dead.” He nods to Murphy. “He’s here, so I’ll take him and leave with your permission.”

Murphy glances to Peter, who looks about as confused as Murphy feels.

“Have you eaten yet?” asks Jon. Prosper shakes his head. “You should eat before you go,” says Jon. “I’ll take you to the mess hall, come along.”

“Yessir,” says Prosper, and falls into step behind him.

When they’re gone, Murphy turns to Peter and says, “What happened there?” and Peter just shakes his head. Jon had turned from his normal self to a soldier in seconds; in the stiffening of his shoulders, the tightening of his jaw. The way he held himself. Murphy shifts his weight from one foot to the other, adrift, until Peter stands up — and Murphy realizes they’re the same height, though he always imagines Peter as taller — and gestures for Murphy to follow.

They go to the mess hall. Murphy snags a plate of pancakes and sits down across from Peter. In the early morning hours, there’s nobody much here yet, Prosper and Jon are one and a half tables away from them. It’s easy enough to hear them — nobody else is awake enough for talking.

Prosper has three pancakes stacked on top of each other, one cinnamon roll, and a handful of not-rice. He pours syrup over his pancakes and pokes at them with his fork, but doesn’t begin to eat. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he says, sounding — sullen?

“I’m sorry,” says Jon, oddly sincere. “I am still looking for her,” he says. “Peter and Mofi are watching us, do you want to go somewhere else to have this conversation?”

“I don’t care,” says Prosper, and he stabs the top pancake with his fork. “Do you care?”

“Easier to just let them listen in. Peter doesn’t understand gonpleisleng, and I doubt Mofi will care.”

Prosper nods, but he pays more attention to his pancakes than to Jon’s face. “You want to keep Mofi,” he says, not quite a question. “I saw you come in with him. He’s your lieutenant now.”

“Prosper —“

Prosper talks over him. “He’s useless as a lukotwar,” he says. “He doesn’t respect authority and he resents any help given to him. He is not worth your time or your resources.”

“ _Translate,_ ” hisses Peter across from Murphy, and he is brought back to where he is now, sitting in the mess hall.

“ _It’s nothing important,_ ” says Murphy, and Peter scowls his disbelief.

“Everyone is useful here,” says Jon neutrally. “But how are you? How is Moss?”

Prosper looks at Jon this time. He seems very _young_ to Murphy in that moment; a student caught off-guard by his teacher. “He’s well,” he says, a non-answer. “There is a flu going around the barracks, but he hasn’t caught it yet, and I don’t think he will.” More honest, but still no good information.

“Do you think he will survive the Conclave?” asks Jon, and when he says this, he touches the hand that Prosper rests on the table. Prosper jerks his hand away and doesn’t meet Jon’s eyes again.

“There are only six Nightbloods left,” he says eventually. “He has a better chance than he did.” Jon waits. Prosper eventually fills the silence sitting between them. “It is — unlikely.”

Jon nods, solemn. “What if Moss didn’t have to fight in the Conclave?”

“What are you saying?” asks Prosper, sharp.

“We could offer him sanctuary here in Dropof,” says Jon, easy as can be.

“As a citizen,” says Prosper, disbelieving. “He would be a citizen, a member. Not a bargaining chip to be used later. One of _yours.”_

 _“_ Yes,” confirms Jon. “We already have a Nightblood in residence. We would keep him safe, and he could be happy here.”

Prosper stares at him for a moment, and then stabs the pancake in front of him. Put it in his mouth, deliberate. Chews, swallows. “You want me to leave your _branafa_ alone in exchange.”

Jon tips his head a little, acknowledging but not confirming.

“I will need time,” says Prosper. “To reach a decision. It is —“ and here’s where he sounds honest again, like himself. “It is my Commander’s trust in me, Captain. It is my home.”

“It is your brother’s life,” says Jon, gently.

“Then have this information in good faith,” says Prosper, sharper. He lets his voice carry. “There is a spy in Dropof who reports to the Commander.”

Jon stands up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit! a spy???? in dropof??? who would've thought!!!! i wonder if .... anyway. ;)
> 
> the not-rice is quinoa, murphy. keen-wa
> 
> branafa - new son
> 
> hi!!!! i'm stressed 24/7 and i moved and my new bedroom is not warm enough! please comment and warm my heart


	17. it's thirty-eight now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this took forever
> 
> this might literally be the Biggest Pause this series has ever taken since i started writing it almost three years ago. thank you for still reading!

Rose knows all the legends about Jon, even the ones she wasn’t there for. The Wanderer, the Soldier, the Ghost. Rarely seen by the same people twice, rarely in the same place for more than a week. The time Jon freed a thousand slaves from an Ice Nation bounty hunter; the time Jon saved dozens of people from a collapsed building in Podakru, how he raced horses with Ingranronakru as a tornado touched down. Rose knows that they’re rarely all the way real, but there is a grain of truth inside each one.

The stories get taller with each retelling. But Jon never tells them — he’ll let his scars speak for themselves. When Prosper asks her about them, she embellishes the bits that Jon wouldn’t. They were just breaths away from being sucked away by the tornado. There was acid fog coming for Podakru, all the way across the lake. There was an army keeping down the Ice Nation slaves, and Jon fought them all with just his staff. Prosper listens to her and nods thoughtfully, like he believes every word.

He swaps her for those stories with stories she’s never heard before. Before Jon was a Legend. When he was a soldier in Polis’s army; Prosper’s captain. How he fought through a civil war in Louwada Kilron, how he and his squad restored peace to the Shallow Valley. How he and Anya kom Trikru put Lexa on the throne, six summers ago. How he fought to get justice for Oshokru after it was attacked by Azgeda, to at least send aid. He chokes up a little bit during that story. Rose gives him a handkerchief.

—

Clarke has a mid-afternoon meeting with Lexa, a meeting with Lexa The Commander, not any mere social call. She was told to schedule it between two other things, and she already knows that she will be too busy to canoodle afterwards, so she’s dreading it. With the disappearance and probable death of Murphy, Skaikru’s place in the Thirteen Clans is shaky at best. Every clan must sacrifice something to Polis; for most, it is soldiers, or a portion of their crops, or bred livestock. And it is true that Skaikru has its own soldiers in Polis, acclimating, becoming Grounders. But Murphy as their lukotwar, as Polis’s weapon to wield amongst the clans — that was powerful.

“So you’ll need to sacrifice another lukotwar,” says Lexa. “Would you have anyone in mind? One of your hundred, perhaps?”

“It’s thirty-eight now,” says Clarke absently, like the number is a thing that matters. “You’ve met Octavia, haven’t you? Indra’s second?”

“Yes, of course,” says Lexa.

“She would be a good choice. Relentless, bloodthirsty. More importantly, happy to help Polis.”

“Excellent,” says Lexa. “You’ll ask her this evening, then?”

That means a trip down to Skaikru territory, several hours on the back of a horse, and a night away from her Commander. Clarke sighs. It’s for her people.

—

Jon has been out all week with Peter, trying to figure out who the spy within their midst is. Murphy has taken himself to his generator shifts and his kitchen shifts, but that day, Dime shows up early in the morning.

Prosper is staying over, (and Jon makes him oatmeal in the mornings too and he stays in the third bedroom and Murphy feels like something in his stomach is constantly boiling over), so he is the one that opens the door. “Hey,” he says. “Rose is still eating breakfast.”

“Not here for Rose,” says Dime neatly, and steps past Prosper. “Doe,” he says instead, addressing Murphy. “You still interested in joining the scouts?”

Murphy swallows. Yeah, he could hit something right about now. “Sure,” he says. “If that’s — allowed.”

“I’m allowing it,” says Dime, rough.

“Okay,” says Murphy, because Jon isn’t here to argue or say _are you sure you want to do that, Mofi?_ or a dozen other things all focused on his mental well-being. Who’s watching out for his training, yeah? What’s Ruth gonna say when he gets back to Polis, all squishy and satiated? _You know that’s never gonna happen, right?_ He doesn’t want to think about that.

Dime takes him up to the scouts. Dime pairs him up with someone his own size. Murphy emerges from the fight bruised and victorious. Afterwards, Dime gives him a short sword and helps him strap it to his back and herds him to a collection of people that he calls a _squad._ They go up some stairs, and — _the surface, the surface! —_ sun on his face, fresh air, the smell of flowers and rot — he hadn’t ever dreamed about it in space and he doesn’t dream about it now, but the soft earth underneath his feet is like remembering how to breathe again. He loves it.

He tells Dime that he wants to join the scouts. Dime’s eyes crinkle into a smile.

—

Jon’s been covering his usual rounds, asking slightly different questions than usual, and Peter’s been covering the outside of the kru, checking for people going in or out that don’t have reason to be there. They reconvene in Peter’s office. It comes down to two possibilities: Enki the child-mute, or Ritzi who works in laundry. Peter dismisses the first with a wave of his hand, and Jon has to agree: Lexa isn’t going to work with a freikdreina, and children make better soldiers than spies.

Ritzi, though, is spotted sending letters to someone in the outside world, and she is brought back to be interrogated. Further investigation reveals that she has been sending letters to her lover in the village she was exiled from. Not a Commander. The scouts are given strict instructions to watch her comings and goings, and she gets off with a reminder that Lostkru is to be kept secret, so that it stays safe.

When they return to Peter’s office, Jon sits down heavily on the couch and watches as Peter paces back and forth. “We can’t continue this search like this,” he says, an admittance. “We can either trust our own kru or we can’t trust anybody. Everything depends on Prosper now, and his sway with the Commander.”

“Maybe you’re the spy,” says Peter, and Jon just stares at him until he sits down at the desk and buries his head in his hands. He can’t be much older than Prosper, and he has so much _weight_ on his shoulders.

“You don’t really think that,” says Jon eventually, giving him an out.

“I don’t,” admits Peter. “I’m just tired. You’re sure you have a handle on Prosper?”

“A warrior is more loyal than a spy,” rumbles Jon. “I made sure Lexa knew as much.”

“You’ve led an interesting life, wanderer,” says Peter.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” says Jon, and he’s millimeters away from a smile when he adds: “Commander,”onto the end.

Peter’s mouth twitches in response. “Get some sleep,” he says. “Tell Prosper he leaves in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canoodle
> 
> if you're still reading this in spite of it feeling more and more like original characters interacting with each other and less of a t100 fanfiction, thank you for sticking around. if you're interested in This but Different, check out 'run this town' also by me. hoping to do a half-murphy/half-polis schedule from here out, since murphy is settling in as well as can be expected by now. 
> 
> anyhow. thank you for still being here. i put a lot of work into this, and your kudos and comments really do mean the world to me.


	18. only the fighters survive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! i’m a fulltime student now and i have Less Time, but quick shoutout to this story for reminding me that i can Work on Things and Stick With Them and i’m not a failure of a person. thank you for sticking with me!

The morning after Prosper is gone, Jon puts the schedule for the week down on the dining room table. Murphy, his mouth full of oatmeal, looks at it. “This is wrong,” he says, swallowing. “I have scouting here and here instead of cooking. And another generator shift right there.”

“Scouting?” says Jon, and his voice is mild enough that Murphy isn’t… afraid, exactly. He just feels like maybe he should brace himself. “I didn’t authorize that.”

“Dime did,” says Murphy, and then, unbidden: “while you weren’t paying attention.”

“Are you sure that this is something you want to do?” asks Jon.

“I can be useful,” says Murphy, defensive, hackles rising.

“That’s not the question I asked, Mofi,” says Jon. Murphy doesn’t say anything. He swallows another spoonful of oatmeal, thick in his throat.

“I’m leaving!” shouts Rose from the doorway.

“Don’t forget to take your lunch!” Jon bellows back. Murphy takes the span of noise as invitation to put his own mostly-uneaten breakfast in the sink and make a break for the door.

“We’re not done talking about this,” says Jon firmly, although Murphy is pretty sure that if he just ignores it long enough, they absolutely are done talking about this.

“Sure,” says Murphy. He has to sit down to put on his shoes then, which is kind of wrecking his leaving vibe.

“You don’t have to fight anyone here to survive,” says Jon patiently, coming to stand by the doorway with him.

“Only the fighters survive,” says Murphy, bitter and _why can’t we be done with this._

“So why are the children still alive?” asks Jon. “Colu? Sia? Ritzi? They’re in no shape to fight, and they’re still kicking. People are pack animals, Mofi; we look out for each other.”

“You’ve made space for them,” says Murphy, wishing he could — hide away, or just leave. “I’m — no good at anything else.”

“Mofi,” says Jon, very gently. “We’ve made space for you too.” Something strange and painful dislodges in Murphy’s chest, making its way up to his throat. He focuses on tying his shoes. “I’ve seen you with Rose, with Felix. You _do_ have talents, if only you would value them.”

“Fight me, old man,” says Murphy, desperate and painful.

“I don’t think you really want that,” says Jon, quiet, and Murphy swallows down _go float yourself_ because it wouldn’t make any sense to him and — he’s already dug himself into enough trouble. He finishes tying his shoes and leaves without saying goodbye. Without looking back.

 

—

 

Clarke arrives to Arkadia in the evening, just as the mosquitos are beginning to surface, hungry for blood and skin. She tethers her horse to the post, strides through like she belongs here, because this is her home, isn’t it? This is where she belongs. She has dreams about returning here with Lexa by her side, setting up a little house, like the hundred used to have before ALIE, field and dropship and maybe a fenced-in yard with chickens. She deserves peace, after all this.

(But Lexa could never leave Polis. Lexa will never stop being Commander. Lexa will never deserve peace, not like this, not like how she wants it —)

She finds Octavia in the training grounds, sparring with Harper. She admires both of them, perched on a stool flung aside in some long-forgotten battle. She considers Harper for a moment, for her choice of lukotwar: there’s that same relentless spirit, the strike upward, the flashpoint — but Harper has somebody here, she has Monty. And they’re happy together. That doesn’t make for a good weapon.

Octavia, though. Octavia with a streak of red across her face, turning and blocking effortlessly, this dance that she plays out with Harper — it’s how Murphy used to fight, with Bryan, three summers ago. Before he was so — worn down. And now he’s dead. Or a dead man walking. They’ll know when prosper gets back. 

So it goes.

Clarke doesn’t see who wins the fight, but it doesn’t really matter. “Octavia, can I talk to you for a minute?” and Octavia rises, meets her by the stool.

“What’s up?” asks Octavia, wiping away the sweat from her brow. “Did you need something?”

Better to just come right out and say it. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in becoming the _lukotwar_ for Polis,” she says.

“You think I could become a spy?” Octavia asks, and there’s a note of wonder there.

Clarke hesitates. “A _lukotwar_ isn’t really a spy,” she says, placing each of her words very carefully, one in front of the other. She needn’t have bothered, though, because this is when the older Blake appears, having extracted himself from another fight.

“You can’t have her,” says Bellamy, clipped and furious. Clarke tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and marvels that she ever found him handsome. Now he’s just in the way.

“Go float yourself,” says Octavia, and Clarke wants to carve that stubbornness into something sharper.

Bellamy ignores his sister, though, and turns to Clarke. “I understand that you need someone from Skaikru,” he says, and a sharp thrill of fear shows up. What exactly had Murphy told him about being _lukotwar?_ “Don’t let it be Octavia. I’ll go instead.”

Alright. That’s very — that’s very tempting, Bellamy. The devotion he has to his sister, transferred to Polis and Polis’ needs. His raw ability, his experience as a soldier. Clarke wouldn’t have to deal with Indra. “You would be lukotwar?” she asks.

“I want to —“ says Octavia, bitter and all at once. Clarke holds up one imperious hand, and Octavia stops talking. Commander of Death, so it goes.

“You both want to be lukotwar?” she asks.”Then fight for it. Winner takes all.”

 

—

 

Murphy is finishing a bout with Jen, tired and pleased, when Jon shows up on the training grounds. Murphy stiffens, takes a blow, and taps out so he can think about packing up Elephant and moving to another kru. Like anywhere else would take him.

Jon is picking up a staff from the table of weapons available to him, but sets it down again when Dime says something to him. Mofi doesn’t fight with weapons. The only thing he can rely on are his fists; a knife is just something that makes your punch worth something. “You wanted a round with me?” he asks, even.

What? Oh, oh no. Earlier today: _fight me, old man._ “Sure,” he says, because _what the fuck,_ he guesses. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Alright,” says Jon. “Let’s go.”

It takes him a bit to realize that this — isn’t what it should be. It’s not that Jon is letting him win; he’s not giving him obvious ins, or not blocking when he should be, he’s just — holding back. Murphy gets — angry about it. Real fucking worked up about it. “You’re going easy on me,” he accuses, hissed and low.

“If I wasn’t holding back,” says Jon evenly. “you’d be in no shape to do anything at all for a while.”

“And you want me useful,” Murphy snarls.

“I think you need to feel — useful,” says Jon, stilted, like the English word isn’t part of his vocabulary. Like he thinks it doesn’t apply to the situation.

“You wouldn’t’ve kept me if I wasn’t useful,” snaps Murphy, and to his horror, he can feel tears pricking at the edges of his vision.

“Eventually,” says Jon, tired, but not unkind: “you’re going to stop believing that.” He’s stepped forward now, defenseless, but Murphy can’t — he can’t — Jon is shielding him from the other scouts, who are muttering amongst themselves and — Murphy drops his guard and wipes furiously at his face, the heels of his hands to his eyes, his breath coming out in these horrible ragged spurts.

Dime again. “Y’all aren’t getting anything done here,” he says. “Go home.”

Murphy sucker-punches Jon in the stomach. Tries to, anyway: Jon catches him by the wrist, lightning-fast and his grip is firm but gentle. “Already given the crowd a lot to talk about today, haven’t we?” he murmurs, soft.

Fuck everyone. Fuck the crowd, fuck Jon, fuck everything about this. He wants to not think about this, whatever this is, just wants to fight and get hit and hurt and that’s familiar, that’s _home,_ not this — not this made-up fantasy where he doesn’t have to.

He pulls his wrist out of Jon’s grip. Jon lets him. They go back to Jon and Rose’s place.

 

—

 

He wins the fight with Octavia. She’s gotten better, since she started as Indra’s second, but he has Ark guard training and has already killed his first hundred men. He feels numb and kind of light-headed, too close to grief and too recently removed from crisis to really process anything.

In Polis, Clarke says that this room is his now, traditional lukotwar quarters. It is Murphy’s room with Murphy’s stuff still scattered around. When he opens the door, Moss is there, clutching something soft and small in his hands. As Bellamy enters, he glares — he _glares!_ Bellamy’s never seen that from the kid — and hurries out, not speaking.

Bellamy takes off his shoes and leaves them by the door. He pulls up his pant leg to examine the tattoo freshly drawn into his skin; a stylized version of the sun, one circle and spider-y lines coming out from it. He’s to go into Azgeda territory, investigate rumors of an undead Ice King. It all sounds far-fetched to him, impossible. Clarke has indicated that in the morning they will give him better directions. Maybe with a map and tiny figures, like they are playing at war all over again.

He sits down on the bed, and when he does, there is a rattling sound from underneath, like clanks against concrete. He crouches down to check it out, hoping that it is not some chamber pot that has spilled over.

It is not a chamber pot. It is one cuff attached to a chain, to secure someone to the bed. The metal is dull. Rust? No. Dried blood. 

Bellamy swallows.

_Friend of war, huh?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that’s some plot  
> also lukotwar!harper is a great AU
> 
> cheerynoir: so then what happens?  
> me: ????????  
> cheerynoir: solid plotting right there
> 
> thanks for reading! please drop me a comment, i love them with all my heart. you can also talk to me on twitter @geographconcept or on tumblr @icetastrophe
> 
> also rec for blueparacosm’s ‘the old magic oddities show’ if you’re looking for a completed murphamy fic[ (i cried!) ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089060/chapters/34987217)


	19. you can't kill a cockroach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo! content warning for this chapter: self-harm (thought about) and suicidal ideation

It’s nearly time to go find Dime so that the day can begin, and Mofi still hasn’t gotten out of bed. Rose worries her bottom lip and moves her spoon around in her empty breakfast bowl, uneasy. Jon has been in to his bedroom several times, once with hot oatmeal, and he still won’t come out. Jon gives her a tired smile: “I’m sure Mofi will be okay,” he says. “We’ve all had days like this, right?”

Sure, Jon has spent entire days in bed like this, but usually he can at least see Rose off in the morning. Rose has kept herself under the covers before, but usually Jon can come in and tickle her feet till she’s awake, giggling, letting her forget unhappy times.

Mofi is like her; he has the same scars on his wrists, matchy-matchy. Maybe Jon hasn’t tried to tickle his feet. He probably wears socks to bed. That’s some forward-thinking, planning for the future.

Rose puts her bowl in the sink and goes to stand in the doorway of Mofi’s room. He’s just a lump underneath all those blankets, not even his head sticks out. She has to somehow say the perfect thing, something that would help. She doesn’t know what that thing is.

She has to leave before she finds out.

—

Bellamy finds Moss in the stables, petting one of the horses. “Hey, Moss,” he says, even, trying to stay easy.

“Bellomi,” says Moss, steady. His voice has gotten deeper. He has gotten taller. “Why are you here?” More serious, perhaps. Older, for certain.

“I’m the new lukotwar,” says Bellamy, and watches Moss’s whole body stiffen at the mention of it. “And I was just wondering — what happened to the old lukotwar? Mofi? I know you were friends.”

“The former lukotwar has no name,” says Moss, and Bellamy remembers: we do not speak the names of our dead. Something shifts in the pit of his stomach, something nameless as well.

“No,” says Bellamy, because it’s just — _no._ You can’t kill a cockroach.

“Prosper is home today,” says Moss. “He was there — he went there. He will tell you.”

—

Murphy rises mid-afternoon, hungry but not — acknowledging it. Everything has tasted like sand, lately, like rations left out in the desert. And like the desert: he’s ready to fuck up enough for Jon to abandon him and he’s on his own again, just keep poking and prodding in all the right places. It’ll happen eventually; why wait for it to turn sour on its own?

So he gets out of bed. He drags a chair from the dining room table. He stands on it; steady, steady. Yeah, he’s tall enough. Jon has been roused from wherever; he’s stayed home to take care of or watch over Murphy. Well good for him. He climbs off the chair, finds and takes one of the little pins that Rose leaves lying around, opens it. Drags the chair over to the high-up cabinet with the lock. The Sharp Things Cabinet.

There are easier ways to damage himself. The burner on the stove, turned up, bare arm. Scratching at his skin until he bleeds. But he wants something different — he wants Jon to watch him. See that he’s unsaveable, that he should give up now. Save them all a little bit of pain.

He starts working at the lock.

Jon is trying to talk him down. He filters that out. Except for — “Mofi. MOFI, look at me.”

Murphy does not look at him. But he says: “It’s not Mofi. It’s Murphy. With an R. Murrrrrr-phy.”

“Murrrrr-phee,” says Jon, very deliberately. “Get down from that chair right now or I will take you down.”

Murphy ignores him. Keeps working. Lock’s almost open now, Jon, you think I’m gonna give up that easily?

Jon picks him up by the middle. Carries him out the door, ignoring his shoes. Murphy goes limp. It’s what he wanted, after all.

—

Prosper makes him sit down. Prosper puts water in a kettle, then sets it to boil. Prosper hands him a mug of hot tea, and he can feel the warmth in his numb, staticky hands. He is trying to breathe, but it seems hard to do for some reason.

“Match me,” says Prosper next to him, still water. “In, out. Easy, easy. Set down your tea.”

Bellamy sets down the tea. “I don’t — where — what does a lukotwar _do?_ What does it mean?”

“Oh, Bellomi,” says Prosper, but what he means is _bellamy you idiot._ You fool. You absolute imbecile.

“Just tell me what happened to Murphy,” he says, because that’s what he came here to do, to ask, to find out.

“Mofi was sent to a village to destabilize it and kill their leader,” he says. “He did not succeed.”

“You don’t kill a cockroach,” says Bellamy, blank.

“Sometimes the cockroach wants to die,” says Prosper impossibly. “I saw his body myself, Bellomi. And even if the village hadn’t killed him — he failed his mission. I would have finished the job myself.”

“Why — I thought you were _friends._ ”

“You really don’t know anything, do you,” says Prosper, and his voice is all pity.

—

Jon takes him to medical. Sets him down on his own two feet, and while he’s shaking himself off, all offended and confused, Jon says to Felix, sitting at the desk: “I’d like to check Murr-phee in for a seventy-two hour suicide hold,” he says, very calm, very even, like he’s helping Rose through a lesson, or talking to Peter about something important. Felix darts his eyes up to Murphy and writes something down on his notebook. He murmurs something to Jon that Murphy can’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears, and leaves them to talk to Barlow in her little office.

“What the fuck is Felix gonna do that you can’t?” he snarls, and he can’t think about what he’s saying too hard, because, because —

“I don’t know,” says Jon, still in that even tone. “Apparently whatever I’m doing isn’t working, so some fresh eyes on the problem might do the trick.”

Murphy doesn’t know if he’s breathing. He has to — has to drive the knife in more, make sure Jon leaves him here and never comes back, has to — “So I’m not useful to you anymore and you’re just going to abandon me here?” Knife still hurts though, doesn’t it?

Jon looks him in the eye, and after a second, Murphy meets his gaze. “I can’t fix you,” he says. “I can’t make this better. You have to _want_ to heal, and I don’t think you want to. I think you want to stay like this —“ like what? Like this, _damaged?_ “because it’s easier. The devil you know, right?”

“Fuck you,” Murphy bites out.

“Okay,” says Jon, untouchable.

Murphy swallows. He swallows. He wants to kill himself right now, and make Jon watch, because then he’d be fucking _sorry —_ “I’ll see you in three days then.”

“I’ll pick you up when Barlow gives me leave to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL THOSE SURE ARE SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
> 
> uhhhh please tell me if you're enjoying this story in the comments, they are literally the reason i keep writing. even just 'aaaaaaa' is good. thanks for reading! <3
> 
> school starts for me tomorrow, so Who Knows when another update will arrive


	20. barlow: part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all! this is not as long as i wanted it to be, but i would like to update y'all and also school sure is hard and who knows when i will update again???
> 
> cw for: nonconsensual watersports???, public humiliation

“Listen. Listen. I used to live in the Skybox, right, and they call it that because every cell’s got a view of the sky, I guess. I don’t know why they call it that. They can shut off the sky, too, right — guards can pull the blinds down from the outside. Most of the solitary cells are like that. Anyhow. I used to live in the Skybox, because I was a criminal but I was only like, eleven, so they couldn’t float me. I was this really skinny kid, too, right, and all the guards were kind of like “what the fuck” at first because I was the youngest they’d had in a long time, and then word got around that I’d tried to kill one of their own, and then they were like “fuck this kid”. And I didn’t really have any friends or anything, because I was just so young, and my cellmates kept aging out and getting floated — sorry, that’s how you get executed on the Ark, because like, nobody has any time for bodies that aren’t being useful, gotta earn your keep and all that, so you get pushed into an airlock and then they open the big doors and you get sucked out into space, and there’s no air in space and you suffocate and freeze to death at basically the same time. I watched them do it to my dad. It’s really gross.”

“Why did your dad get floated?” Barlow’s office is neat and tidy. Murphy is sitting on the blue couch. Barlow sits in an armchair, her feet tucked up under her. It’s all very pleasant. He is not fooled. (He is kind of fooled.)

“I killed him.”

“You’re….. not a spaceship.” At least she understands that much.

“See, when you do a crime on the Ark, any crime, you get floated. Unless you’re a kid, which means under eighteen, then you get the Skybox. And then when you’re eighteen they give you a review to see if you’ve improved as a person, and if you have, they don’t float you. But the guards had it in for me, so I knew I wasn’t going to pass. So I, you know, stopped trying. I was a mouthy little shit, I didn’t work if I could help it, I was an absolute nuisance when they tried to put me in school. And they didn’t have anyone near my age, it was all teenagers, so my cellmates kept aging out and getting dead, so most of the time it was just me and the dumbass stuff I did.”

“I asked about your father, Mofi.”

“Yeah, that. So like… one time, I was in the cafeteria, and I got my food, and I sat down, and it was shitty food, and I was bored, and so I started talking to this big kid and you know, it got heated, because I didn’t know when to shut up and also I didn’t care then, and we got into it, and I poured my milk down the back of his shirt, and then the guard came over. And they cuffed the other dude and took him to solitary, and I thought I was gonna be next. Instead, someone just like, flips me over and I get some guard’s boot on the back of my neck, and I was wriggling and yelling and flipping the fuck out, but getting cut off like that was — I woulda gone to solitary easy. I mean, not easy, I wasn’t easy, but if I’d had the choice — Like, the next thing I feel is this warm liquid down my back, soaking all over my shirt. Smelled real bad too. It keeps hitting my back, and I realize it’s piss. The guard’s pissing on me. In front of everybody.”

Barlow doesn’t say anything. Murphy needs this story to be enough of a sacrifice.

“And then it was back to my cell, which was basically solitary anyway at that point cause the last kid got floated, and the part that really sucked was that I had to stay like that till the next morning during showers cause they shut off the water to my cell so I couldn’t get it off me.”

“You didn’t deserve that.”

“Shut up.”

“Why does that bother you?”

“You don’t _know_ what I deserve. I was awful, right? I got what was coming to me. And I kept getting it.”

“You were _eleven.”_

“Twelve by then, maybe.”

It hardly matters. Would you say that Rose would deserve it, if such a thing happened to her?

"I wouldn’t let Rose get put in lockup."

"But if she did."

"No. Rose wouldn’t deserve it. But like — you’ve _met_ Rose."

"It would be a despicable thing for any child to go through. Why are you special?"

Anxious glance to the door. “Can I leave?”

“Can you answer the question?”

No. _No._ There is a void in the pit of his stomach. There is a blackness in his heart, some evil that he has never spoken aloud. “I don’t — I don’t want to.”

“Then you can leave the office. But not the medical wing. And I’ll ask it again.”

“Can I take a shower?”

“Ask Felix.”

He gets up before Barlow decides to revoke permission. Felix is at the main desk. Murphy kind of leans over it. “I want to take a shower,” he says, very firm.

“Oh,” says Felix, surprised, looking up. His eyes are. Very pale blue. Kind of watery. “Yeah, I’ll get some spare clothes for you.”

“Thanks,” says Murphy. He waits for Felix to get the clothes, then he takes the bundle into his arms and heads for the med wing’s bathroom. Felix follows him. “Um?”

“I’m just here to make sure you aren’t hurting yourself,” says Felix. “I’ll be out here.”

Murphy takes a deep breath. It’s just like suicide watch in the Skybox. He can deal with — not having privacy. _Can you maybe turn around for a minute._ He’d get laughed at in the Skybox. He doesn’t want to be laughed at. He’s done this before. It’s just.

Felix has nice eyes. And a nice smile. And a nice touch. And —

Murphy is just so. _Scarred. Marked._ Without clothes, there’s — nothing to hide behind. He feels the urge for a knife again, the grip of it in his hand, slicing off his tattoos, his scars —

This is why you’re in the fucking med wing, you idiot.

Clothes. Strip down. Felix isn’t — isn’t actually looking. Into the shower. Yank the curtain closed. Breathe breathe turn the water on it’s loud it’ll drown out the sound of his own breathing. Turn it all the way hot. Well, lukewarm, apparently. Rest his head against the wall and let it just wash over him. Closes his eyes.

Got out of worse things before. Survived them. You think you can survive yourself, Mofi?

That’s the question, isn’t it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aw, mofi
> 
> see you in december probably!
> 
> (please leave me comments because i love them)


End file.
